Child Birth Deaths can be Prevented
3/15/16 Deaths due to child birth complications in India are decreasing! In less than 25 years, the number of women in India who died from complications due to pregnancy and childbirth has dropped significantly, from 152,000 to 45,000.
That’s great news! But on the down side, that means that tens of thousands of women in India still die each year from complications with pregnancy and childbirth. What are they dying from? The major causes are high blood pressure and hemorrhaging, which can be preventable in most cases.
What is being done about this? Organizations like Merck are working to decrease these fatalities. Merck has committed to spending $500 million over the next 10 years to improve maternal health around the world through an initiative called Merck for Mothers.
Merck for Mothers networks skilled professionals with nonprofit organizations around the world to teach these nonprofits the best-fit methods for child birth in both the public and private sectors. In return, these skilled professionals are seeing firsthand the issues developing countries are having and they bring these experiences back to Merck for Mothers where they can be discussed and solutions created to mitigate preventable health issues.
As of 2015, 4,751 health care workers were trained and the quality of care was improved at 787 facilities in India, reaching more than 467,000 women. It’s proof that these partnerships have created an atmosphere of sustainable improvement in India.
Working with local partners the initiative is helping set and maintain standards that can be passed down in training for years to come.