Pregnancy Should Be Safe

War victims are not the only ones dying on account of Afghanistan's devastated health-care system.
The country's maternal mortality rate is the world's worst: One in six Afghan women die in pregnancy and childbirth, according to the World Health Organization. The U.S. rate is one in 2,500 women.

The sad truth is that if the Afghan government and its U.S. backers had invested in things that keep pregnant women alive -- such as emergency-care facilities and training and security for paramedics, including midwives -- the country would now have at least a bare-bones health-care system. And a lot more besides: Healthy women deliver not just babies but paychecks and economic growth. In fact, U.N. Millennium Development Goal No. 5 -- reduce maternal mortality by three-quarters by 2015 -- is sometimes called the heart of all the goals because the things needed for its achievement have so many other benefits. And if it fails, all the other program goals will fail, too.

source : www.washingtonpost.com