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Skilled birth attendance‐lessons learnt
Author(s) -
Adegoke AA,
van den Broek N
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
bjog: an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.157
H-Index - 164
eISSN - 1471-0528
pISSN - 1470-0328
DOI - 10.1111/j.1471-0528.2009.02336.x
Subject(s) - attendance , childbirth , baseline (sea) , human resources , medicine , narrative review , demography , pregnancy , psychology , economic growth , political science , economics , sociology , intensive care medicine , genetics , law , biology
To reduce the horrific maternal mortality figures that we have globally especially in resource poor countries, there was a global commitment to reduce maternal mortality by three‐quarters by 2015 using 1990 as a baseline. To measure the achievement of this goal, two indicators: maternal mortality ratio and proportion of births attended by skilled attendance were selected. To ensure skilled attendance at birth for all women, the international community set a target of 80% by 2005, 85% by 2010 and 90% coverage by 2015. However, in 2008 only 65.7% of all women were attended to by a skilled attendant during pregnancy, childbirth and immediately postpartum globally with some countries having less than 20% coverage. With the global human resource crisis, achieving this target is challenging but possible. This paper provides a narrative review of the literature on the skilled birth attendance strategy identifying key challenges and lessons learnt.