In countries such as Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and Burundi, where high fertility is coupled with high maternal mortality, women face an extremely high lifetime risk of dying in pregnancy or childbirth.
Every pregnancy entails risk, especially where health care is poor.
Each year, more than 500,000 women worldwide die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes, almost all of them in the developing world. While maternal mortality measures the risk of death from pregnancy and childbirth, it also reflects the general health, social and economic status of women and their access to health care. Maternal deaths result directly from poor health, poor nutrition before and during pregnancy, inadequate care during pregnancy and delivery, and unsafe abortion. Of all development indicators, maternal mortality illustrates most starkly the gaping chasm in well-being between the developed and developing worlds. A woman in a developing country has a one in 60 chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth, compared with just one in 2,100 in developed countries.