MDG 5 – Maternal Health | IPS Inter Press Service | News Agency | Journalism & Communication for Global Change

Q&A: Maternal Mortality Rates ‘One of the Saddest Cases’ in Asia

By Marwaan Macan-Markar and Noeleen Heyzer

Nearly 15 years after a landmark international conference to advance the rights and freedoms of women, the picture in the Asia-Pacific region is mixed, says a leading women’s rights advocate and senior United Nations official.

AFRICA: Growing Use of Cellphones for Family Planning

By IPS Correspondents

The growth of cellphone use, particularly in the developing world, is providing health experts with a new channel of communication to provide family planning information.

Q&A: Recognise the Benefits of Slowing Population Growth

By Susan Anyangu

Family planning: key to reducing child mortality and improving maternal health; a way to put less strain on the environment; and a smaller population makes the challenge of providing adequate education and health services that little bit easier.

Bunmi Makinwa: Women must be included at all levels in responding to climate change. Credit: Nastasya Tay/IPS

CLIMATE CHANGE: Women Central to Adaptation, Mitigation

By Nastasya Tay

Poor women will bear the greatest ‘climate burden’, says the United Nations Population Fund in its 2009 State of the World Population report, released today.

Expectant mothers in a Cuban maternity home. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

CUBA: Fewer Storks Visiting Shiny Maternity Clinics

By Patricia Grogg

Women in Cuba cite a variety of reasons to explain their decision to have only one child, ranging from the housing shortage to the rising cost of living and the many work responsibilities they have to shoulder. But many say that if things were different they would have a bigger family.

MIDEAST: Gazans Brace for Cold, Bleak and Miserable Winter

By Mel Frykberg

Tens of thousands of Gazans living in tents and damaged homes face a wet, cold and miserable winter as Israel’s blockade of the coastal territory continues to prevent the importation of building and reconstruction material.

FRANCE: Top Designers Make Dolls to Fund Darfur Vaccinations

By A. D. McKenzie

Designer rag dolls, the concept couldn't sound more frivolous. But dolls made by top fashion designers such as Armani and Prada are helping to fund a vaccination programme in war-torn Darfur.

SRI LANKA: Anxiety Persists Over Safety of Rubella Vaccine

By Amantha Perera

Sudarma Senevirathana’s teenage daughter is at an age when she can already be given the ‘rubella’ vaccine, administered free of charge by government health officials at schools.

Teenage mom Maura Escobar with her baby María. Credit: Daniela Estrada/IPS

CHILE: Teen Pregnancy, a Problem That Won’t Go Away

By Daniela Estrada

Chile currently stands out for its spectacular progress in a number of health indicators, including maternal and child mortality and chronic malnutrition. But these successes obscure an acute social problem that refuses to yield: the steady rise in the number of teenage mothers.

HEALTH: U.S. Urged to Double Aid to Global Projects

By Matthew O. Berger

As the effort to achieve universal health coverage within the U.S. crawls forward in Washington, a new report by a coalition of global health organisations details how the U.S. can "help lead the world to universal access to comprehensive health care in developing countries".

AFGHANISTAN: The Cheap Way to Hell

By Lal Aqa Sherin

For the last three weeks, 30-year-old Ghulam Nabi has lain in a Kabul hospital bed, suffering. His face is etched with hopelessness, loneliness and despair over the life he once had and has now lost forever.

AFRICA: Uneven Progress on Development Goals

By Evelyn Kiapi

The Millennium Goals cannot be achieved at the United Nations. The U.N. can create a platform for governments to make commitments but cannot force compliance by member states.

(From left to right) Prof Gargi Chakarvarthy, Dr Usha Shrivastava and Annie Raja call on government to bring back the ‘dais

INDIA: Return of Traditional Birth Attendants Urged to Meet MDG 5

By Ranjit Devraj

As India struggles to lower one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates, activists and experts are calling for a revision of polices aimed at "institutionalising" deliveries in resource-poor rural settings and phasing out the 'dai' or traditional birth attendant (TBA).

RIGHTS: Unsafe Abortions Killing 70,000 a Year

By Sanjay Suri

Unsafe abortions kill about 70,000 women a year, says a report by the U.S.- based Guttmacher Institute. An additional five million women are treated annually for complications arising from unsafe abortion, adds the report, based on a global survey.

Marcela Suazo, regional director of UNFPA Credit: UNFPA

Q&A: Invest in Young People in Latin America

By Daniela Estrada

To fight inequality, Latin American countries must double the financial commitment they made at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Marcela Suazo, the regional director for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), told IPS.

CAMBODIA: Alarming Maternal Deaths Require a Mix of Solutions

By IPS Correspondents

Early this year, heavily pregnant Vorn Yoeub, 37, arrived at a hospital in the western Cambodian border town of Pailin. The mother of seven other children died later that evening along with her unborn child after suffering complications from bleeding.