Half of women in poor countries deliver in a health facility

Each year an estimated 287,000 women worldwide die giving birth and 3 million newborns do not survive the first 28 days of life, U.S. researchers say. The study, "Adding it Up: The Need for and Cost Maternal and Newborn Care -- Estimates for 2012," by Susheela Singh, Jacqueline E. Darroch and Lori S. Ashford of the Guttmacher Institute in New York, said more than a third of women in the developing world do not give birth in a health facility that has properly trained staff and adequate equipment. The vast majority of these women with an unmet need for delivery care live in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. However, in 2008-12, the proportion of women in the developing world who delivered in health facilities increased from 55 percent to 64 percent. Despite the substantial improvements in recent years, 44 million women in the developing world, as well as their newborns, lacked facility-based delivery care in 2012, the study said.