§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many mothers(a) died and (b) suffered injury or disability through childbirth in each developing country in the last year for which figures are available. [139532]
§ Hilary BennMaternal mortality is difficult to measure. As a result, WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA have developed an approach to estimating maternal mortality that generates estimates for countries with no data and corrects available data for underreporting and misclassification. They estimate that there were 527,000 maternal deaths in the year 2000 in developing countries, where 99.6 per cent. of all maternal deaths occur. The latest country estimates for the year 2000 have been placed in the Libraries of the House under the title "Maternal Mortality Estimates in 2000". The number of maternal deaths is listed in the fourth column.
Measuring and classifying the numbers of women who suffer injury or disability as a result of pregnancy and childbirth is even more challenging. Estimates from WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA for 1995 suggest that 300 million women worldwide (including 25 per cent. of the developing world's adult women) suffer from ill health and disability as a result of complications of pregnancy. WHO is currently conducting a review of published and unpublished studies in an attempt to provide a comprehensive tabulation of available data on the prevalence and incidence of global maternal morbidity.
DFID is also working with partners to develop and use improved ways of measuring the extent of maternal mortality.
A copy of the report and latest estimates of maternal mortality developed by WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA is available at: http://www.who.int/reproductive-health/ publications/maternal_mortality_2000/maternal_ mortality_2000.pdf
§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development what proportion of births were assisted by skilled births assistants in sub-Saharan Africa in each of the last 10 years. [139619]
§ Hilary BennThe proportion of women in Sub-Saharan Africa who gave birth with the assistance of a skilled health worker (the internationally agreed maternal mortality indicator) increased slightly from 40 per cent. in 1990 to 42 per cent. by 2000.
Annual figures for sub-Saharan Africa as a whole are not available.
More information and individual country data can be found by accessing UNICEF's statistical database at http://www.childinfo.org/index2.htm.