Maternal, infant mortality rate high in Pakistan

PESHAWAR: The rate of maternal deaths due to pregnancy-related complications runs very high in Pakistan for a host of reasons and there is greater need for providing necessary facilities to women to reduce the maternal and infant mortality rate.

This was stated by organiser of the Centre of Excellence for Rural Development (CERD) Taj Ali and project manager Khalid Afridi at a press conference here on Friday.

Taj Ali said that 275 women out of every 100,000 die due to pregnancy-related issues. He said that a number of reasons were responsible for the high rate of maternal deaths. Some key reasons are improper gap between two kids, non-availability of skilled midwives, illiteracy, excessive bleeding during delivery and some conventional delays.

The CERD representative said that only 39 percent women in the country have access to trained midwives, while 66 percent children are born in houses at the hands of untrained women. He said that one woman dies every 20 minutes in the country due to pregnancy or delivery.

He said his organisation had launched a project in collaboration with Unicef for the protection of women and infants.

The organisation would register some 17,000 families in the country. The women and infants in these families would be vaccinated against fatal diseases.