News

The second round of finalists for the Saving Lives at Birth competition were recently announced. The theme for this round was “Meeting Families Where They Are".

WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, and the World Bank recently released updated maternal mortality estimates for 2012. The report, Trends in Mortality: 1990 to 2010, confirm that the number of women dying in pregnancy and childbirth (278,000) is declining, but there is more work to be done in delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted and every childbirth is safe.

The 2012 'Countdown to 2015' report was released yesterday. The report highlights country progress—and obstacles to progress—towards achieving Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health. It focuses, like previous Countdown reports, on evidence-based solutions—health interventions proven to save lives—and on the health systems, policies, financing and broader contextual factors that affect the equitable delivery of these interventions to women and children.

New global, regional and national estimates for the causes of child mortality since 2000 were recently published in the Lancet. For newborns, progress in reducing deaths has been especially slow. Over 3 million newborns died in 2010. This was only down by 600,000 from 10 years earlier. Newborn deaths now account for 40% of all under five childhood deaths, up from 38% in 2000.