Maternal deaths should be treated as a human rights issue and governments need to focus on best antenatal practices and provision of emergency obstetric care to bring down the number of maternal deaths, says Professor Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran, president of the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (FIGO). Many factors Safe motherhood is often the confluence of a multitude of factors — good antenatal care and doctors trained in emergency obstetrics are important, but ensuring accessibility to these services is a challenge for most low-resource countries.

Despite its wealth, the U.S. is ranked 49 in the world in maternal mortality ratio (MMR) because of the inequities in health care, Dr. Arulkumaran says. He was talking to The Hindu, while on a visit to the city recently to attend the annual international conference of the Trivandrum OBGYN Club “A proper maternal ecosystem should be in place – maternal health should be a top priority for governments, with initiatives that provide appropriate, affordable, accessible care, along with a tough system of maintaining accountability— if the lives of mothers are to be saved,” he says.

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