To this day, women continue to die from the age-old and most common complications of pregnancy and childbirth – hemorrhage, infections, unsafe abortion, obstructed labour, and the hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. In 1995, the latest estimated number of maternal deaths globally was 515,000. Of these deaths, 53 per cent (272,000) occurred in Africa, 42 per cent (217,000) in Asia, four per cent (22,000) in Latin America and the Caribbean, and less than one per cent (2900) in the world’s more developed regions.
