This is GOOD news...

I know most posts on this blog seem to show the negative aspects of Nepal's development. Good news and stories of progress do exist. This bit of news is fantastic and all Nepali's should find hope in between the lines. It is one area that the medical community in Nepal can be proud of....

Maternal Mortality Drops

Nepal's maternal mortality ratio has decreased significantly in the past eight years due to reduction in fertility rate, iron supplementation, increase in skilled birth attendance, and substantial increase in the coverage of antenatal care, UNICEF said Friday .

While the maternal mortality ratio was 539 per 100,000 live births in 1998, it came down to 281 per 100,000 in 2006, according to latest studies, the UN body said.

"Nepal is in line with meeting the Millennium Development Goals of reducing maternal mortality ratio," John Brittain of UNICEF said.

Nepal intends to reduce this by three-fourths of the 1990 level. Nepal's rate is better than that of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in South Asia. Sri Lanka is the best country in the region in terms of maternal mortality ratio where the figure stands at 43 and Afghanistan is the worst with 1600 per 100,000 live births.


The maternal mortality ratio is the number of women who die at childbirth per 100,000 live births. In Nepal, 19 percent of births were attended by skilled birth attendants and 18 percent delivered their babies at health facilities in 2006 compared to 11 and 9 percent respectively in 2001, UNICEF says.

Key challenges that remain in this area include unmet needs for family planning and birth spacing to avoid unwanted pregnancies, and also lack of emergency obstetric care services, modern equipment and well trained personnel, said Ms. Gillian Mellsop, the UNICEF country representative in Nepal in a statement.

UNICEF supports the government in its policies in the health sector and has called for maternity services to be made free for all women in Nepal to help encourage attendance at good quality, well staffed health facilities nationwide, said the statement.

UNICEF Friday released a report Progress for Children: A Report Card on Maternal Mortality according to which more than 99 percent of all maternal deaths occur in developing countries, with some 84 percent concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

source: www.kantipuronline.com