7 April 2025 – Women today are more
likely than ever to survive pregnancy and childbirth,
according to a major new report released today, but United
Nations (UN) agencies highlight the threat of major
backsliding as unprecedented aid cuts take effect around the
world.
Released on World Health Day, the UN report,
Trends in Maternal Mortality, shows a 40 per cent global
decline in maternal deaths between 2000 and 2023 – largely
due to improved access to essential health services. Still,
the report reveals that the pace of improvement has slowed
significantly since 2016, and that an estimated 260,000
women died in 2023 as a result of complications from
pregnancy or childbirth – roughly equivalent to one maternal
death every two minutes.
The report comes as
humanitarian funding cuts are having severe impacts on
essential health care in many parts of the world, forcing
countries to roll back vital services for maternal, newborn
and child health. These cuts have led to facility closures
and loss of health workers, while also disrupting supply
chains for lifesaving supplies and medicines such as
treatments for haemorrhage, pre-eclampsia and malaria – all
leading causes of maternal deaths.
Without urgent
action, the agencies warn that pregnant women in multiple
countries will face severe repercussions – particularly
those in humanitarian settings where maternal deaths are
already alarmingly high.
“While this report shows
glimmers of hope, the data also highlights how dangerous
pregnancy still is in much of the world today – despite the
fact that solutions exist to prevent and treat the
complications that cause the vast majority of maternal
deaths,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,
Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO). “In
addition to ensuring access to quality maternity care, it
will be critical to strengthen the underlying health and
reproductive rights of women and girls – factors that
underpin their prospects of healthy outcomes during
pregnancy and beyond.”
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The report also
provides the first global account of the COVID-19
pandemic’s impact on maternal survival. In 2021, an
estimated 40,000 more women died due to pregnancy or
childbirth – increasing to 322,000 from 282,000 the previous
year. This upsurge was linked not only to direct
complications caused by COVID-19 but also widespread
interruptions to maternity services. This highlights the
importance of ensuring such care during pandemics and other
emergencies, noting that pregnant women need reliable access
to routine services and checks as well as round-the-clock
urgent care.
“When a mother dies in
pregnancy or childbirth, her baby’s life is also at risk.
Too often, both are lost to causes we know how to prevent,”
said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. “Global
funding cuts to health services are putting more pregnant
women at risk, especially in the most fragile settings, by
limiting their access to essential care during pregnancy and
the support they need when giving birth. The world must
urgently invest in midwives, nurses, and community health
workers to ensure every mother and baby has a chance to
survive and thrive.”
The report highlights persistent
inequalities between regions and countries, as well as
uneven progress. With maternal mortality declining by around
40 per cent between 2000 and 2023, sub-Saharan Africa
achieved significant gains – and was one of just three UN
regions alongside Australia and New Zealand, and Central and
Southern Asia, to see significant drops after 2015. However,
confronting high rates of poverty and multiple conflicts,
the sub-Saharan Africa region still counted for
approximately 70 per cent of the global burden of maternal
deaths in 2023.
Indicating slowing progress, maternal
mortality stagnated in five regions after 2015: Northern
Africa and Western Asia, Eastern and South-Eastern Asia,
Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand), Europe and
North America, and Latin America and the
Caribbean.
“Access to quality maternal health services
is a right, not a privilege, and we all share the urgent
responsibility to build well-resourced health systems that
safeguard the life of every pregnant woman and newborn,”
said Dr. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA’s Executive Director. “By
boosting supply chains, the midwifery workforce, and the
disaggregated data needed to pinpoint those most at risk, we
can and must end the tragedy of preventable maternal deaths
and their enormous toll on families and
societies.”
Pregnant women living in humanitarian
emergencies face some of the highest risks globally,
according to the report. Nearly two-thirds of global
maternal deaths now occur in countries affected by fragility
or conflict. For women in these settings, the risks are
staggering: a 15-year-old girl faces a 1 in 51 risk of dying
from a maternal cause at some point over her lifetime
compared to 1 in 593 in more stable countries. The highest
risks are in Chad and the Central African Republic (1 in
24), followed by Nigeria (1 in 25), Somalia (1 in 30), and
Afghanistan (1 in 40).
Beyond ensuring critical
services during pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal
period, the report notes the importance of efforts to
enhance women’s overall health by improving access to
family planning services, as well as preventing underlying
health conditions like anaemias, malaria and noncommunicable
diseases that increase risks. It will also be critical to
ensure girls stay in school and that women and girls have
the knowledge and resources to protect their
health.
Urgent investment is needed to
prevent maternal deaths. The world is currently off-track to
meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target
for maternal survival. Globally, the maternal mortality
ratio would need to fall by around 15 per cent each year to
meet the 2030 target – significantly increasing from current
annual rates of decline of around 1.5 per
cent.
About the data:
The SDG target for maternal deaths is for a global maternal
mortality ratio (MMR) of less than 70 maternal deaths per
100 000 live births by 2030. The global MMR in 2023 was
estimated at 197 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births,
down from 211 in 2020 and from 328 in 2000.
The report
includes data disaggregated by the following regions, used
for SDG reporting: Central Asia and Southern Asia;
Sub-Saharan Africa; Northern America and Europe; Latin
America & the Caribbean; Western Asia and Northern
Africa; Australia and New Zealand; Eastern Asia and
South-eastern Asia, and Oceania excluding Australia and New
Zealand.
About World Health Day:
World Health Day is marked around the world on 7th April.
Each year, it draws attention to a specific health topic of
concern to people all over the world. The World Health Day
2025 campaign focuses on improving maternal and newborn
health and survival with the theme “Healthy beginnings,
hopeful futures”. The campaign urges governments and the
health community to ramp up efforts to end preventable
maternal and newborn deaths, and to prioritize women’s
longer-term health and well-being.
About the United
Nations Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency
Group:
The report was produced by WHO on behalf of
the United Nations Maternal Mortality Estimation
Inter-Agency Group comprising WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, the World
Bank Group and the Population Division of the United Nations
Department of Economic and Social Affairs. It uses national
data to estimate levels and trends of maternal mortality
from 2000-2023. The data in this new publication covers 195
countries and territories. It supersedes all previous
estimates published by WHO and the United Nations Maternal
Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group.
A maternal
death is a death due to complications related to pregnancy
or childbirth, occurring when a woman is pregnant, or within
six weeks of the end of the
pregnancy.
