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Accelerating Progress Toward Maternal and Newborn Health

Today, April 7, is World Health Day. This day marks the 77th anniversary of the World Health Organization (WHO) since its founding in 1948 and an opportunity for the WHO to bring attention to a different global health issue every year. On this World Health Day, the WHO is rallying around the theme “Healthy beginnings, hopeful futures” to incite action on maternal and newborn health.  

Ending preventable maternal and child death is one of the world’s top global health priorities and a key component to sustainable development and creating healthier, more productive, and more equitable societies. Since 1990, the world has made significant progress in reducing maternal and newborn deaths; however, maternal mortality reductions have stagnated since 2016, and declines in neonatal deaths are not fast enough to reach global targets by 2030. Today, almost 300,000 women die due to pregnancy- or childbirth-related causes every year; at the same time, more than 2 million babies die before they are one month old and another 2 million are stillborn each year.  

While the reasons behind the recent stagnation are multifactorial and complex, evidence has pointed to key contributing factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, rising poverty, increasing conflict and humanitarian crises, and underinvestment in health systems. The majority of maternal and newborn deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries where access to health care may be limited and life-saving innovations are not yet implemented or accessible at scale. High-income countries typically have much lower maternal and neonatal mortality rates, but the United States is a notable exception, having the highest maternal mortality rate of all high-income countries. 

Accelerating progress will require ramping up investment to address both the immediate biomedical causes of death and the underlying biosocial factors that lead to poor health outcomes. That means reducing hemorrhage and hypertensive disorders—the leading causes of maternal deaths—reducing premature birth, birth complications, and neonatal infections—the leading causes of neonatal deaths—and addressing indirect factors such as malnutrition, infectious and noncommunicable diseases, mental health conditions, and access to health care. Evidence has shown that investing in the health of mothers directly impacts the health of newborns. Mothers who receive care from a skilled doctor, nurse, or midwife before, during, and after birth have a reduced risk of experiencing a pre-term birth or having birth complications, and they are less likely to lose their babies. 

Targeted investment in maternal and child health works, even when economic growth is modest. Through goal-focused investments, implementation, and monitoring, the Maldives—despite being a small island country with only modest improvement in GDP per capita—was able to reduce their maternal mortality rate by 90 percent: from 677 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1990 to 68 deaths per 100,000 births in 2015. 

This dramatic decline was achieved through a suite of strategies aimed at improving quality, availability, and access to health care through the pregnancy to postpartum spectrum. These included increasing the number of midwives and nurses, mandating additional training and home visits, expanding access to birthing facilities, implementing family planning education programs, and increasing access to birth control. 

Investing in maternal and newborn health is critical to accelerating progress, saving lives, and improving the health outcomes of mothers, children, and families. At a time of mounting political, economic and social uncertainty, sustained global action, collaboration, and coordination are more important than ever to protect our shared commitments to advance the right to health for all. 

 To learn more about maternal and neonatal mortality, access our resource packs on Global Maternal Mortality and U.S. Maternal Mortality or check out the selected resources below. 

Selected Resources 

Teaching Resource 

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