Yet low-cost interventions are available to prevent or treat them. Other key factors in this success have included an increase in education levels among women, investment of adequate resources and the widespread use of case management guidelines. And most of them could be prevented at low cost. Sri Lanka, for example, is a major success story. In that country, where a third of the population is estimated to live below the poverty line, maternal mortality rates are among the lowest in the developing world.
Most deliveries take place in a health facility, with the support of a skilled birth attendant.
This achievement is the result of government commitment to improving education and health in Sri Lanka, the relatively high status of women, and high female literacy rates.