Maternal Mortality

Today the high level of maternal mortality in Kazakhstan becomes a significant problem and a source of concern of international health related organizations and Kazakh government. To start with, we want to clarify the meaning of the term “maternal mortality”. According to the World Health Organization (2007), the maternal mortality rate (MMR) defines the number of women deaths during their pregnancy, delivery and the period up to 42 days after the delivery. As the Human Development Report (2004) shows, the estimated maternal mortality rate in Kazakhstan is equal to 210 cases per 100,000 live births, which is 3 times higher than in Russia and 14 times higher than in Norway. The MMR is a very important national indicator, because it reflects the women access to the healthcare during pregnancy and delivery, and, in a large scale, the whole socio-economic situation in the country. Moreover, the analysis of maternal mortality causes indicated, that 77, 8% of deaths were preventable, Tamara Voshenkova, the vice-minister of healthcare claimed. Therefore, the measures to decrease the MMR that we need to be taken today should be mostly based on the preventive medicine.

The factors that contribute to the high level of maternal mortality vary broadly, among them we can point out complications occurred during pregnancy and delivery, poor quality of equipment in maternity wards, low qualification of doctors and nurses, abortions and criminal abortions and the low level of education of reproductive age women.

We need to draw closer attention to the factor of abortions. In Kazakhstan, every third pregnancy ends with the abortion, 300 thousands abortions are made every year, and about a quarter of the maternal deaths happen because of abortions, Interfax-Kazakhstan reports. The low qualities of medical services, lack of necessary equipment and insanitary conditions have negative and risky consequences to woman health that can lead to a death. Also, we shouldn’t overlook the...