Maternal Health Awareness in Pakistan: Why Are Mothers Still Dying?
Every 30 minutes, a woman in Pakistan dies due to a preventable pregnancy-related complication. Every number hides a reality, a name, a family, a history that should have been different. At SSW , Sustainable Support for Women, we believe that maternal health awareness in Pakistan is not only a slogan it's a matter of life or death. It's the choice that parents make to give their child a future with a mother or without one. This page is dedicated to all women who should have had this choice, and to everyone who can help them have it. Maternal health awareness in Pakistan requires urgent attention.
About or MISSION
Understanding Maternal Mortality in Pakistan
The maternal mortality ratio (MMR) in Pakistan is 186/100,000 (based on the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2017-18). 11, 000 women die every year from pregnancy and childbirth related morbidities and over 75% of these deaths are entirely preventable. Rather than representing failure of medical science, these deaths are a failure of society to provide women with the information and access to services that could make hour- long childbirth safe. Today, only 28% women have four recommended antenatal visits and 34% of the births still have the problem of unskilled birth attendants.
What Maternal Health Really Means
Maternal health refers to a woman’s health during pregnancy, childbirth, and pregnancy period in which she has a newborn. It is also concerned with a woman’s health in terms of her Physical and mental health. Emotional and psychological development. Nutritional well-being. Access to quality, skilled medical services.
Freedom to choose when, where, how to give birth. Control over her own body. Healthy mothers lead to healthy families and communities; their children survive and reach their potential they escape deep-rooted, generational poverty; their families are better off; their communities are more resilient. Maternal health is a Human Development issue – not a women’s issue – and one that was initially central to the founding of SSW.
Antenatal Care: Protection That Starts Before Birth
Quality antenatal care is currently the most effective measure known for reducing maternal mortality. In its recommended minimum schedule, WHO recommended at least eight visits with blood pressure testing, anemia and infection screening, nutrition counseling, tetanus immunizations and birth planning. Unfortunately in Pakistan the vast majority of women especially the rural women of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa do not even receive a quarter of this ante natal care.
Fatima’s Story: When Awareness Arrived Just in Time
Fatima was 24 and in her third pregnancy when the community health worker from the organization functioning under the State Safety Wing paid her a visit in her village outside Dera Ghazi Khan in southern Punjab. She never had her antenatal visits for other two pregnancies not because she was not aware of their significance but because no one had ever conveyed them to her in the first place. The health worker identified warning signs and prompted Fatima to visit a nearby community health facility. The physician informed under preeclampsia, a severe condition characterized by abnormally high blood pressure which was potentially fatal if she had not had earlier care and delivery.
Family Planning: A Right Every Woman Deserves
Family planning is one of the most proven, effective, yet most underutilized options in maternal health. Having the ability to determine the timing and safe spacing of pregnancies not only leads to lower maternal mortality, but increases child survival rates, and places women in the position to make important decisions about their lives. Despite the waiting time for family planning by married women in Pakistan (17% according to PDHS 2017-18), only 34% of married women report using some method of complications during pregnancy and delivery.
Maternal Wellbeing
Encouraging awareness about women’s physical and emotional wellbeing during motherhood.
How SSW Supports Maternal Health Awareness Across Pakistan
SSW – Sustainable Support for Women is creating a sustainable, evidence-based, community-driven maternal health awareness platform, in Pakistan, on the belief that every woman has a right to live. By training community health workers, providing reproductive health education to women never reached before, and operating mobile health camps we are working to make that happen, one woman at a time. If you think that no woman should die giving life to the world- give, recruit, join, or just pass on this page. All the help you can get. All the voices count.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Families & Supporters Ask Us Most
The maternal mortality ratio for Pakistan is 186 per 100,000 live births. Approximately 11,000 women each year die due to pregnancy related causes, predominantly preventable.
Yes. Most prominent Islamic scholars and most Pakistani religious organizations have issued Fatwas supporting space between children for health reasons. SSW collaborates with community and religious leaders to clarify support for family planning in a culturally sensitive manner.
The SSW manages field operations utilizing community health workers and mobile health camps; reaching out to poor communities of Punjab, Sindh, KPK and Balochistan where there is the least access to health structure..
You could donate, be a volunteer, or become a partner with SSW to help fund our awareness programs and our community health outreach. Go to our Contact page to know how to get started.