Fewer Egyptian women die of maternal causes
today than they did 10 or 15 years ago,
thanks in large part to the national safe
motherhood program. Nevertheless, maternal
mortality in Egypt is still relatively high, and the
country faces challenges in reducing it further.
Many of these challenges involve addressing the
delays women face when they need essential
obstetric care. In Egypt and other countries, most
maternal deaths could be avoided if women had
timely access to high-quality emergency obstetric
services.
Every year about 1,400 Egyptian women and
half of their newborns die from complications
related to pregnancy and childbirth. Although this
level of maternal mortality (84 maternal deaths
per 100,000 live births) is relatively high by international
standards, recent evidence suggests that a
woman’s lifetime risk of dying from maternal
causes in Egypt has dropped dramatically, from 1
in 120 to 1 in 250 during the 1990s.1
Egypt’s maternal-mortality success story can
be told because the country conducted two
nationally representative studies less than 10 years
apart. These studies make an exceptional and valuable
contribution to the world’s understanding of
safe motherhood, a health issue for which there is
generally a lack of reliable data. The studies’ findings
also provide insights into the programmatic
elements associated with maternal survival.
This policy brief describes Egypt’s efforts to
reduce maternal deaths—a process that can offer
valuable lessons for other countries in the Middle
East and North Africa (MENA), as well as for the
rest of the developing world.