Making pregnancy safer

Introduction

Every day 1500 women die due to complications in pregnancy or childbirth. 10 000 babies per day die within the first month of life and an equal number of babies are born dead. Skilled care around the time of birth would greatly reduce the number of these needless deaths.

The WHO Department of Making Pregnancy Safer (MPS) helps to improve maternal health, assists countries to ensure skilled care before, during and after pregnancy and childbirth and strengthen national health systems in order to achieve Millennium Development Goals 4, 5 and 6. The main goal is to reduce newborn mortality and maternal mortality significantly by 2015.