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Inexcusable Maternal Deaths

Maternal Deaths Deemed Inexcusable, “An Outrage”

Simple Measures Could Help Save 529,000 Women Per Year, World Leaders Say

May 19, 2009
Sarah Brown attends the WHO's annual congress. Maternal Deaths Deemed Inexcusable. Simple Measures Could Help Save 529,000 Women Per Year, World Leaders Say

Britain’s Sarah Brown, right, Patron of the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, and wife of… Expand

(Laurent Gillieron/Keystone/AP Photo)

GENEVA (Reuters) - There is no excuse for the fact that pregnancy and childbirth continue to kill 529,000 women and leave 1 million children motherless worldwide every year, the wife of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday.

“Every health minister should be thinking about this and knowing what their plan is,” Sarah Brown told the World Health Organisation’s 193 member states at their annual congress.

Simple measures before, during, and after delivery could save women’s lives and should be instituted as soon as possible, she told the meeting at the United Nations offices in Geneva.

“There is no longer an excuse not to try,” Brown said, building upon a forceful speech by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who called it “an outrage” that countries have done so little to improve maternal survival rates.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WellnessNews/wireStory?id=7624637