Guttmacher: 70% Reduction in Maternal Deaths Within Reach

We received a press release from the Guttmacher Institute on Friday, showing that investment in family planning and pregnancy-related care could bring a reduction of seventy per cent in maternal deaths, and as much as a fifty percent reduction in neonatal deaths.

LONDON – Maternal deaths in developing countries could be slashed by 70% and newborn deaths cut nearly in half if the world doubled investment in family planning and pregnancy-related care, shows a new report by the Guttmacher Institute and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. Currently, more than half a million maternal deaths and 3.5 million newborn deaths, many of them easily preventable, occur each year, in developing countries.

The new report, Adding It Up: The Costs and Benefits of Investing in Family Planning and Maternal and Newborn Health, also found that investments in family planning boost the overall effectiveness of every dollar spent on the provision of pregnancy-related and newborn health care. Simultaneously investing in both family planning and maternal and newborn services can achieve the same dramatic outcomes for $1.5 billion less than investing in maternal and newborn health services alone.

“Investing in a handful of basic health services, like family planning and routine delivery care, can save millions of women and babies,” says Dr. Sharon Camp, President of the Guttmacher Institute. “It’s not rocket science. These are mostly simple services that can be provided inexpensively at the local level, supplemented by provision of urgent care when needed.”

Good thing the wealthiest countries in the world are so dedicated to bringing this investment to the rest of the world, right? Right? I mean, it's not like some small group of religious anti-science fanatics could hold us back from that, right?

LOLsob? LOLsob.