More than 350,000 women and girls die every year as a result of preventable complications of pregnancy and childbirth, most of them in developing countries.



United Nations Millennium Development Goal 5, (MDG 5), focuses on improving maternal health and universal access to family planning, which could prevent up to one third of these deaths.
                                
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Prayer on the Occasion of a Rachel Sabbath
(And for all women on Earth)

God of our ancestors, we remember before you our sister Rachel, who died giving birth to Benjamin. We pray for the 1500 women who die each day, like Rachel, from complications of pregnancy or childbirth. We know that the means exist to save these lives. Inspire our creativity and give us the will to help our sisters. May every birth be anticipated with joy and every mother be healthy. Amen.

Maternal Health
11 ~ Pregnancy and childbirth leave millions of women and girls with short- or long-term injuries, infections or disabilities (maternal morbidities). For every maternal death there are about 20–30 cases of maternal morbidity.

12 ~ An estimated 19 million unsafe abortions occur each year in developing countries.13 These unsafe abortions account for at least 13% of all maternal deaths.14 In 22 countries, a woman must obtain her husband’s permission before having an abortion.

15 ~ In the developing world, 137 million women who don’t want to get pregnant are not practicing contraception, primarily because it is too costly or not available.

16 ~ One third of maternal deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth could be avoided if women who wanted effective contraception had access to it.

17 ~ Adolescent girls (ages 15–19) account for approximately 12% of all births, and for 14% of the unsafe abortions, in the developing world.

18 ~ Of the 123 million women living in developing countries who give birth each year, only about half receive the maternal and newborn care they need. Almost one-fifth of these women will have obstetric complications that go untreated.

International Family Planning
19 ~ Mothers who wait three to five years before having another child have a lower risk of pre-eclampsia, hemorrhage, maternal death, and other complications of pregnancy and childbirth.

20 ~ Comprehensive family planning leads to sharp rises in contraceptive use, reducing unwanted pregnancies. Between 1960 and 1990, fertility in the developing world declined from more than six to fewer than four births per woman; more than 40% of that decline is attributable to family planning programs.

21 ~ Meeting adolescents’ needs for family planning, particularly contraception, would break the cycle of having too many children too early in life, which creates health risks and imposes undue financial burdens on young women and families.

22 ~ Levels of unmet need for contraception vary greatly among subgroups of women both at the regional level and within countries. Women who are young, uneducated, poor or living in rural areas are generally at high risk of having unintended pregnancy.

23 ~ Combined, 215 million women have an unmet need for modern contraception. If the unmet need for modern methods were fully satisfied, an additional 53 million unintended pregnancies would be averted each year, resulting in 22 million fewer unplanned births, 25 million fewer induced abortions, and seven million fewer miscarriages. An additional 150,000 women’s lives would be saved and 640,000 newborn deaths would be averted.23 Approximately 600,000 children would not lose their mothers.

24 ~ The demand for family planning services will grow by an estimated 40% by 2050 as a record number of young people reach reproductive age.

25 ~ Doubling current global investments in family planning and pregnancy-related care (to approximately $24.6 billion) could save the lives of 400,000 women and 1.6 million infants every year. This amounts to less than 10 days of global military spending.

26 ~ It would also reduce unintended pregnancies by more than two-thirds and reduce unsafe abortions and resulting complications by 75%.

27 ~ Investing in family planning boosts the overall effectiveness of every dollar spent on maternal and newborn health care. Every dollar spent on contraceptive services to help women prevent unintended pregnancies saves $1.40 in maternal and newborn health care costs. Simultaneously investing in both family planning and maternal and newborn health can achieve the same outcomes for $1.5 billion less than investing in maternal and newborn health care alone.

28 ~ Fulfilling the unmet need for modern family planning methods would increase costs by $3.6 billion, but it would lower the cost of providing maternal and newborn health services by $5.1 billion, because roughly 50 million fewer women would become pregnant unintentionally. Thus, it would result in net total savings of $1.5 billion.