AbouZahr C, Wardlaw T, Stanton C, Hill K
Maternal Health and Safe Motherhood Programme, WHO, Geneva.
World Health Stat Q. 1996;49(2):77-87.
A new approach to measuring maternal mortality indicates that there are some 585,000 maternal deaths, 99% of them in developing countries. This is around 80,000 deaths more than earlier estimates have suggested and indicates a substantial underestimation of maternal mortality in the past. There is a greater disparity in levels of maternal mortality between industrialized and developing countries than in any other public health indicator. While significant progress has been made in reducing infant mortality, the same is not true for maternal mortality. Although the actions needed to reduce maternal mortality have long been known, 1 woman in 50 is still dying as a result of pregnancy-related complications and the figure rises to 1 in 10 in many parts of Africa. By contrast, the figure for developed countries can be as low as 1 in 8,000.
一种衡量孕产妇死亡率的新方法表明，全球约有58.5万孕产妇死亡，其中99%发生在发展中国家。这比之前的估计多出约8万例死亡，表明过去对孕产妇死亡率存在严重低估。工业化国家和发展中国家在孕产妇死亡率水平上的差距比任何其他公共卫生指标都要大。虽然在降低婴儿死亡率方面已取得显著进展，但孕产妇死亡率并非如此。尽管早就知道降低孕产妇死亡率所需采取的行动，但仍有五十分之一的女性死于与妊娠相关的并发症，在非洲许多地区这一比例升至十分之一。相比之下，发达国家的这一比例可低至八千分之一。
