Click image for larger view. We as a nation must do all we can to ensure that all mothers are safe and healthy before, during, and after pregnancy. Every year, nearly 1,000 of our sisters and daughters die and hundreds of thousands of others experience medical complications from pregnancy. Death and serious illnesses due to pregnancy and childbirth shouldn t be part of the picture in the United States. Approximately 6 million American women become pregnant each year, and more than 10,000 give birth each day.
Safe motherhood is a vital social and economic investment.
It begins before conception with proper nutrition and a healthy lifestyle. It continues with appropriate prenatal care, the prevention of complications when possible, and the early and effective treatment of any complications that do occur. It ends with a labor at term without unnecessary interventions, the delivery of a healthy infant, and a healthy postpartum period in a positive environment that supports the physical and emotional needs of the woman, infant, and family. Each day in the United States, between two and three women die of pregnancy-related causes. Although the risk of dying of pregnancy-related complications has decreased dramatically in the United States over the past 50 years, this risk has not declined since 1982.