Maternal mortality has fallen by 44 per cent since 1990, United Nations agencies and the World Bank reported today, giving fresh impetus to efforts to reach by 2030 the virtual elimination of women’s chances of dying from pregnancy-related causes as part of the new UN Sustainable Development Goals.

“Maternal deaths around the world dropped from about 532,000 in 1990 to some 303,000 this year, according to the report by the World Health Organization, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN Population Fund, the World Bank Group and the UN Population Division, which is part of the UN Secretariat.

The analyses contained in Trends in Maternal Mortality: 1990 to 2015 – Estimates by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank Group and the United Nations Population Division, are being published simultaneously in the medical journal The Lancet.

Maternal mortality is defined as the death of a woman during pregnancy, childbirth or within six weeks after birth, according to the report.

“Over the past 25 years, a woman’s risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes has nearly halved,” said Dr. Flavia Bustreo, WHO Assistant Director-General, Family, Women’s and Children’s Health. “That’s real progress, although it is not enough. We know that we can virtually end these deaths by 2030 and this is what we are committing to work towards.”

A new Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health, launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in September 2015, aims to help achieve the ambitious target of reducing maternal deaths to fewer than 70 per 100,000 live births globally, as included in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In Armenia maternal mortality has fallen by 57 per cent since 1990. The number of deaths per 100,000 live births has reduced from 58 to 25.

In Russia in marthernal mortality rates have fallen by 60 percent in 25 years, in Ukraine by 47 percent, in Kazakhstan by 84.6 percent. In Belarus the rates has fallen by 88%, in Tajikistan by 70%, in Uzbekistan by 33.3%, and in Turkmenistan by 48.8%.

According to the report, today Belarus has one of the smallest maternal mortality rates in the world: in 1990 they had 33 deaths per 100,000 live births, and in 2015 it’s 4 deaths per 100,000 live births. 3-4 deaths per 100,000 live births is also registered in Austria, Island, Finland, Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic.