South Africa is not cutting maternal mortality fast enough to reach its 2030 goal, with the rate falling only about 1.5% a year, a specialist has warned. Dr Olivia Barigye, a foetal and maternal medicine specialist, said the latest confidential enquiry into maternal deaths shows the decline stalling, and even reversing slightly. She was speaking at the recent Women’s Health…
Tag: Maternal Mortality
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Preventable Maternal Deaths Are a Failure of Equity
South Africa has a sophisticated economy, advanced medical training and a constitution that guarantees reproductive health care. Yet its maternal mortality ratio is rising, and most of these are preventable maternal deaths. The country recorded 111.7 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023, up from 109.6 in 2022 and 98.8 in 2019, before Covid-19. Foetal maternal medicine specialist Dr…
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Stillbirths surge amid global health inequity
A stark reminder of persistent global health inequities has emerged from a new report revealing that 1.9 million babies were stillborn in 2023. Crucially, the report by the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation found that nearly half of these tragic deaths occurred during labour and could have been avoided with adequate medical care. The timing of the report’s…