An article published on December 14 in The Lancet shows that China has attained the Millennium Development Goal set by the UN in 2000 of reducing maternal mortality by 75 percent compared with the data in 1990.
Researchers estimated the maternal mortality ratios for 2,852 counties in China between 1996 and 2015 using a national registration system of maternal mortality at the county level.
The outcomes suggested that maternal mortality ratios have declined rapidly and universally across China at the county level in the past two decades, and in even less economically developed places with resource constraints, rapid improvement in maternal mortality ratios is possible. This finding has important implications for improving maternal mortality ratios in the Sustainable Development Goal era in developing countries.
As a country, China has experienced a rapid decline in maternal mortality ratios, from 108.7 per 100,000 live births in 1996 to 21.8 per 100,000 live births in 2015, with an annualized rate of decline of 8.5 percent per year, much faster than the goal's target rate.
Almost all counties showed a significant decrease in maternal mortality ratios in the two decades. They found, however, substantial heterogeneity in levels and trends at the county level.
The study found that maternal mortality is in inverse proportion to economic development. For example, the maternal mortality rate in Shantou, South China's Guangdong Province in 1996 was 16.8 per 100,000, compared with 3,510.3 per 100,000 live births in Zanda county, the Tibet Autonomous Region.
The National Office for Maternal and Child Health Surveillance of China said that the research provides the government a specific intervention plan to continuously reduce maternal mortality.
