Donate

Home / Newsroom / Fact sheets /

Detail / Maternal mortality

Maternal mortality

26 April 2024

‫العربية‬ 中⽂ Français Русский

Español

Key facts
Every day in 2020, almost 800 women
died from preventable causes related to
pregnancy and childbirth.
A maternal death occurred almost every
two minutes in 2020.
Between 2000 and 2020, the maternal
mortality ratio (MMR, number of
maternal deaths per 100 000 live births)
dropped by about 34% worldwide.
Almost 95% of all maternal deaths
occurred in low and lower middle-
income countries in 2020.
Care by skilled health professionals
before, during and after childbirth can
save the lives of women and newborns.

Overview
Maternal mortality is unacceptably high.
About 287 000 women died during and
following pregnancy and childbirth in
2020. Almost 95% of all maternal
deaths occurred in low and lower middle-
income countries in 2020, and most could
have been prevented.

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) regions

and sub-regions are used here. Sub-Saharan
Africa and Southern Asia accounted for
around 87% (253 000) of the estimated global
maternal deaths in 2020. Sub-Saharan Africa
alone accounted for around 70% of maternal
deaths (202 000), while Southern Asia
accounted for around 16% (47 000).

At the same time, between 2000 and 2020,

Eastern Europe and Southern Asia achieved
the greatest overall reduction in maternal
mortality ratio (MMR): a decline of 70% (from
an MMR of 38 to 11) and 67% (from an MMR
of 408 down to 134), respectively. Despite its
very high MMR in 2020, sub-Saharan Africa
also achieved a substantial reduction in MMR
of 33% between 2000 and 2020. Four SDG
sub-regions roughly halved their MMRs
during this period: Eastern Africa, Central
Asia, Eastern Asia, and Northern Africa and
Western Europe reduced their MMR by
around one third. Overall, the MMR in least-
developed countries* declined by just under
50%. In land locked developing countries the
MMR decreased by 50% (from 729 to 368). In
small island developing countries the MMR
declined by 19% (from 254 to 206).

Where do maternal deaths

occur?
The high number of maternal deaths in some
areas of the world reflects inequalities in
access to quality health services and
highlights the gap between rich and poor.
The MMR in low-income countries in 2020
was 430 per 100 000 live births versus 13 per
100 000 live births in high income countries.

Humanitarian, conflict, and post-conflict

settings hinder progress in reducing the
burden of maternal mortality. In 2020,
according to the Fragile States Index (1), 9
countries were “very high alert” or “high alert”
(from highest to lowest: Yemen, Somalia,
South Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, the
Central African Republic, Chad, Sudan and
Afghanistan); these countries had MMRs
ranging from 30 (the Syrian Arab Republic) to
1223 (South Sudan) in 2020. The average
MMR for very high and high alert fragile
states in 2020 was 551 per 100 000, over
double the world average.

Women in low-income countries have a

higher lifetime risk of death of maternal
death. A woman’s lifetime risk of maternal
death is the probability that a 15-year-old
woman will eventually die from a maternal
cause. In high income countries, this is 1 in
5300, versus 1 in 49 in low-income countries.

Why do women die?

Women die as a result of complications
during and following pregnancy and
childbirth. Most of these complications
develop during pregnancy and most are
preventable or treatable. Other complications
may exist before pregnancy but are worsened
during pregnancy, especially if not managed
as part of the woman’s care. The major
complications that account for nearly 75% of
all maternal deaths are (2):

severe bleeding (mostly bleeding after

childbirth);
infections (usually after childbirth);
high blood pressure during pregnancy
(pre-eclampsia and eclampsia);
complications from delivery; and
unsafe abortion.

How can women’s lives be

saved?
To avoid maternal deaths, it is vital to prevent
unintended pregnancies. All women,
including adolescents, need access to
contraception, safe abortion services to the
full extent of the law, and quality post-
abortion care.

Most maternal deaths are preventable, as the

health-care solutions to prevent or manage
complications are well known. All women
need access to high quality care in pregnancy,
and during and after childbirth. Maternal
health and newborn health are closely linked.
It is particularly important that all births are
attended by skilled health professionals, as
timely management and treatment can make
the di"erence between life and death for the
women as well as for the newborns.

Severe bleeding after birth can kill a healthy

woman within hours if she is unattended.
Injecting oxytocics immediately after
childbirth e"ectively reduces the risk of
bleeding.

Infection after childbirth can be eliminated if

good hygiene is practiced and if early signs of
infection are recognized and treated in a
timely manner.

Pre-eclampsia should be detected and

appropriately managed before the onset of
convulsions (eclampsia) and other life-
threatening complications. Administering
drugs such as magnesium sulfate for pre-
eclampsia can lower a woman’s risk of
developing eclampsia.

Why do women not get the

care they need?
Poor women in remote areas are the least
likely to receive adequate health care (3). This
is especially true for SDG regions with
relatively low numbers of skilled health care
providers, such as Sub-Saharan Africa and
Southern Asia.

The latest available data suggest that in most

high income and upper middle income
countries, approximately 99% of all births
benefit from the presence of a trained
midwife, doctor or nurse. However, only 68%
in low income and 78% in lower-middle-
income countries are assisted by such skilled
health personnel (4).

Factors that prevent women from receiving or

seeking care during pregnancy and childbirth
are:

health system failures that translate to (i)

poor quality of care, including disrespect,
mistreatment and abuse, (ii); insu#cient
numbers of and inadequately trained
health workers, (iii); shortages of essential
medical supplies; and (iv) the poor
accountability of health systems;.
social determinants, including income,
access to education, race and ethnicity,
that put some sub-populations at greater
risk;
harmful gender norms and/or inequalities
that result in a low prioritization of the
rights of women and girls, including their
right to safe, quality and a"ordable sexual
and reproductive health services; and
external factors contributing to instability
and health system fragility, such as climate
and humanitarian crises.

To improve maternal health, barriers that

limit access to quality maternal health
services must be identified and addressed at
both health system and societal levels.

What was the impact of COVID-

19 pandemic on maternal
mortality?
It is clear from the data that the stagnation in
maternal mortality reductions pre-dates the
start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The
COVID-19 pandemic may have contributed to
the lack of progress but does not represent
the full explanation.

The level of maternal mortality during the

COVID-19 pandemic may have been impacted
by two mechanisms: deaths where the
woman died due to the interaction between
her pregnant state and COVID-19 (known as
an indirect obstetric deaths), or deaths where
pregnancy complications were not prevented
or managed due to disruption of health
services.

A robust global assessment of the impact of

COVID-19 on maternal mortality is not
possible from the data currently available:
only around 20% of the countries and
territories have thus far reported empirical
data on their maternal mortality levels in
2020, and high-income and/or relatively
smaller populations are over-represented in
this group – with implications for
generalizability of findings.

The current estimates only extend to include

the year 2020. Given the limited data, we
expect these estimates to be revised in future
updates.

The Sustainable Development

Goals and maternal mortality
In the context of the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDG), countries have
united behind the target to accelerate the
decline of maternal mortality by 2030. SDG 3
includes an ambitious target: “reducing the
global MMR to less than 70 per 100 000
births, with no country having a maternal
mortality rate of more than twice the global
average”.

The global MMR in 2020 was 223 per 100 000

live births; achieving a global MMR below 70
by the year 2030 will require an annual rate of
reduction of 11.6%, a rate that has rarely
been achieved at the national level. However,
scientific and medical knowledge are
available to prevent most maternal deaths.
With 10 years of SDGs remaining, now is the
time to intensify coordinated e"orts, and to
mobilize and reinvigorate global, regional,
national, and community-level commitments
to end preventable maternal mortality.

WHO response
Improving maternal health is one of WHO’s
key priorities. WHO works to contribute to the
reduction of maternal mortality by increasing
research evidence, providing evidence-based
clinical and programmatic guidance, setting
global standards, and providing technical
support to Member States on developing and
implementing e"ective policy and
programmes.

As defined in the Strategies toward ending

preventable maternal mortality
(EPMM) and Ending preventable maternal
mortality: a renewed focus for improving
maternal and newborn health and well-being,
WHO is working with partners in supporting
countries towards:

addressing inequalities in access to and

quality of reproductive, maternal and
newborn health care services;
ensuring universal health coverage for
comprehensive reproductive, maternal and
newborn health care;
addressing all causes of maternal
mortality, reproductive and maternal
morbidities, and related disabilities;
strengthening health systems to collect
high quality data in order to respond to the
needs and priorities of women and girls;
and
ensuring accountability in order to
improve quality of care and equity.

Footnotes

* For details of countries considered in the

group of “least developed” please refer to
standard country or area codes for statistical
use (M49).

References

1. Fragile States Index. Available at:

https://fragilestatesindex.org/data/.

2. Say L, Chou D, Gemmill A et al. Global

Causes of Maternal Death: A WHO Systematic
Analysis. Lancet Global Health. 2014;2(6):
e323-e333.

3. Samuel O, Zewotir T, North D.

Decomposing the urban–rural inequalities in
the utilisation of maternal health care
services: evidence from 27 selected countries
in sub-Saharan Africa. Reprod Health 18, 216
(2021).

4. World Health Organization and United

Nations Children’s Fund. WHO/UNICEF joint
database on SDG 3.1.2 Skilled Attendance at
Birth. Available
at: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/indicators/databa

Related

Maternal mortality: Levels and

trends 2000–2020
Global Health Observatory: Maternal
mortality
Global causes of maternal death: a WHO
systematic analysis. The Lancet Global
Health, 6 May 2014
WHO's work on maternal health
Ending preventable maternal mortality
(EPMM)

News

Parliamentarians are
harnessing science to
advance health for
everyone, everywhere
12 December 2024

Feature stories

Donors making a
di!erence to maternal
health: the urgent drive
to save women’s lives
across the world
31 October 2024

Regions 
Policies 
About us 
Contact us 

Report misconduct

Privacy policy
© 2024 WHO