Improving Birth Outcomes in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Pregnancy outcomes in low- and many middle-income countries are far worse than those in high-income countries. Maternal mortality may be up to 100 times as great in the highest mortality regions as in the lowest mortality regions, and neonatal mortality and the rate of stillbirths are 10 to 20 times as great.¹ Most of the adverse outcomes occur during labor and delivery or soon thereafter. Many experts have suggested that increasing the proportion of deliveries that take place in medical facilities would reduce mortality in low- and middle-income countries to near the level in high-income countries. Yet, despite a shift . . .