1. Make Women Count! and its research center:

2. MATERNAL DEATH: WHO defines maternal death as: The death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes. The death of a woman from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy, delivery and postpartum.

3. EACH MOTHER’S DEATH has a domino effect in developing countries : Women Children Family and community LOSS in productivity (15.000 M US$ / year) IMPOVERISHMENT Good nutrition, school enrollment and survival rates DECREASE dramatically Country Deprived from leading long and prosperous lives

4. AN ESTIMATED women die annually due to maternal causes 300,000

5. What are these mothers dying from? THE truth is… WE currently rely on ESTIMATES. ? ? ? ? ? + + +=

6. More than ½ of the world’s deaths pass by… THIS IS A MAJOR CONCERN: reliable cause-of-death data are crucial for HEALTH PLANNING and PRIORITIZATION 1 2 3

7. We are missing VITAL EVENT DATA to determine maternal deaths : Over 80% of all births occur in countries where maternal cause of death data DON’T EXIST or are INCOMPLETE 88 countries LACK complete data 27 countries have NO data 65 countries have COMPLETE data

8. In many settings what we DON’T know prevents us from reducing MATERNAL MORTALITY

9. To effectively address maternal mortality… WHAT WOMEN DIE FROM We first need to find out

10. POLITICAL WILL = More resources so that every country can ACHIEVE A MINIMUM SET OF VITAL DATA. The solution starts with…

11. And grows with… NEW efficient, easy-to-implement, and cost-effective tools to measure mortality and help close the data gap! Minimal invasive autopsies Reproductive- age mortality studies Civil Registration system Verbal autopsy Household surveys Census R&D=

12. BETTER MATERNAL HEALTH. Designing better interventions and programs Monitoring maternal mortality trends Accounting for individual deaths Better data means…

13. For more information: www.isglobal.org