Preliminaries; Contents; Executive summary; Introduction; Background; Maternal mortality The measurement challenge; Definitions and measures of maternal mortality; Why maternal mortality is difficult to measure; Approaches for measuring maternal mortality; The development of 2000 estimates of maternal mortality; Process for developing the 2000 estimates; Sources of country data used for the 2000 estimates; Differences between the 2000 methodology compared with 1995; Analysis and interpretation of 2000 estimates; Maternal mortality estimates for 2000
Summary
Reduction of maternal mortality is one of the major goals of several recent international conferences and has been included in the Millennium Development Goals. However, measuring maternal mortality is difficult and complex. Reliable estimates of the dimensions of the problem are not generally available and it is difficult to compare the data obtained from different sources and to assess the overall magnitude of the problem. In response to these challenges, WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA have developed an approach that seeks both to generate estimates for countries with no data and to correct available
