Birth pangs

GIVING birth is no easy task. In fact, some say that it’s the greatest pain a woman will ever experience. Hence the truism that once a woman gets pregnant, one foot is already in the grave.

What is true is that far too many women in the Philippines still die from complications related to their pregnancies.

The MDG target on maternal health aims to reduce the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015. This means a reduction to 52 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2015. Unfortunately, the United Nations’s midterm report in 2007 identified this goal as the least likely to be achieved for the Philippines.

In 1998, the country’s MMR declined to 172 deaths, from 209 deaths in 1993. By 2006, however, the rate of decline had sharply diminished to 162.

Watch as one mother gives birth, and learn more about the state of maternal health in the country.

This videocast is a multimedia supplement of i-Report‘s MDGs series.