There are two markers in the evaluation of perinatal medicine, i.e. they are the maternal mortality rate (maternal death rate per 100,000 births) (X) and perinatal mortality rate (still births and early neonatal death within 1 week in 1,000 births) (Y). The maternal mortality is discussed before perinatal mortality in this paper, because the perinatal mortality closely correlated to maternal mo...

In Brazil, data on education, the labor market, and the law enforcement and court systems have already documented that racial discrimination is a structural factor underlying economic and social disadvantages experienced by racial/ethnic minorities. However, racial inequalities in health have received little investigation. According to health indicators presented in this paper, race is a strong...

BACKGROUND The health Millennium Development Goals (4, 5, 6) impose the same ambitious 2015 targets on every country. Few low-income countries are on track to reach them. Some authors have proposed country-specific targets as a more informative method by which countries can measure their progress against their potential. METHODS This paper demonstrates a supplementary approach to assess indiv...

BACKGROUND Many sub-Saharan countries are confronted with persistently high levels of infant mortality because of the impact of a range of biological and social determinants. In particular, infant mortality has increased in sub-Saharan Africa in recent decades due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The geographic distribution of health problems and their relationship to potential risk factors can be inv...

BACKGROUND Prenatal and postnatal visits are two effective interventions for protection and promotion of maternal health by reducing maternal mortality and improving the quality of birth. There is limited nationally representative data regarding the changes of prenatal and postnatal visits since the latest health system reform initiated in 2009 in Shaanxi, China. The aim of this study was to ex...

BACKGROUND India accounts for 19% of global maternal deaths, three-quarters of which come from nine states. In 2005, India launched a conditional cash transfer (CCT) programme, Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), to reduce maternal mortality ratio (MMR) through promotion of institutional births. JSY is the largest CCT in the world. In the nine states with relatively lower socioeconomic levels, JSY pr...

INTRODUCTION In Zimbabwe the integrated disease surveillance and response guidelines include maternal mortality as a notifiable event reported through the Maternal Mortality Surveillance System (MMSS). A preliminary review of the MMSS data for Mutare district for the period January to June 2014 revealed that there were some discrepancies in cases notified and those captured on the T5 monthly re...

BACKGROUND The International Conference on Population Development held in Cairo in 1994 identified the importance of male involvement in reproductive health programs. Since then, there has been an increase in reproductive health initiatives that target both men and women in an attempt to fulfill the 5th Millenium Development Goal. Yet, while the benefits of male involvement have been acknowledg...

A majority of these maternal and neonatal deaths could be prevented with early recognition and proper implementation of required skills and knowledge (Ray and Salihu, 2004). While the Millennium Development Goals (MDG4 and 5) call for a reduction in maternal mortality by three quarters and child mortality by two thirds, this can only be achieved if health care coverage of mothers and newborns i...