Fewer and fewer women are dying from childbirth than ever before – but the declining mortality rate is most notable in India.
The World Health Organization (WHO) released a new report on the country’s “groundbreaking progress” in decreasing the maternal mortality ratio (MMR). According to the article, India’s MMR has fallen by roughly 77% over the last two and a half decades. This translates to 130 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2016, as compared to the whopping 556 deaths per 100,000 live births from the 90s.
There are a host of factors that have contributed to the exciting decline – but the most fascinating approach to preventing maternal mortality is the outreach work being facilitated by international nonprofit Save The Women.
The organization’s outreach work has had the most notable success in the village of Purabgaon, in the Amethi district of Uttar Pradesh. The region used to experience the highest rate of maternity death in the world, largely because village women had poor diets and high rates of anemia. Save the Women started training and deploying teams of 20 village women who would then educate their…
