Women's groups express alarm over rising maternal mortality rate

Scores of mothers and children gathered at the Quezon City Hall on Wednesday to raise the alarm on the rising cases of maternal mortality, fetal deaths and teenage pregnancy.

The activity was in observance of the May 28 International Day of Action for Women's Health.

The Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) and Womenhealth, two non-government organizations, raised the alarm as the government figures in 2006 showed seven mothers die each day due to preventable pregnancy and childbirth complications and 70 infants deaths daily.

"Decline of maternal mortality ratio has been very slow. It was 209 for every 100,000 in 1990, and it is now 162 for every 100,000 in 2006. This is still unacceptably high," Mercedes Fabros of Womanhealth Philippines said.

"The Millennium Development Goal target is 52 maternal deaths per 100,000. But the main point probably here is no woman deserves to die while giving birth," said Joel Saracho, GCAP national coordinator.

GCAP and WomanHealth gathered mothers from several barangays in Quezon City to draw from them a tapestry of tales on the dangers poor women face in giving birth.

Their sad tales range from hospitals rejecting them due to lack of space and equipment, negligence and lack of care from personnel who for whatever reason do not see child birth as an emergency case, hospitals demanding deposits, down payments, medicines before looking into the patient and absence of free pre-natal check-ups.

One of such tales is Freda Atienza, 37, gave birth to Quezon City General Hospital on September 22, 2007 but only after getting rejected by two other hospitals earlier that nearly killed her due to severe complications.

Equally alarming are cases of teenage pregnancy and the dangers they undergo while carrying a child and giving birth.

"Imagine a child giving birth to a child. It is dangerous. Their bodies have not yet fully developed for giving birth. With teenage pregnancy and maternal deaths comes the risk of infants also dying. On the average, at least 28 newborns/fetuses die every day. That is government statistics," Fabros said.

"Government should take a serious look at the situation. These children are potential productive members of our society. They too don't deserve to be robbed of their future," Saracho added.

Source: Philippines News Agency (PNA),May 29, 2008