N. Korea's maternal mortality rate estimated at 67 per 1 lakh live births in 2023: Report

Seoul, April 11 (IANS) North Korea's maternal mortality rate was estimated at 67 per 100,000 live births in 2023, a number dramatically lower than in 2000 but nearly 17 times higher than South Korea's figure, a report showed Friday.

The figures were released in a recent report on maternal mortality estimates, jointly published by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank Group and other international organizations, Yonhap news agency reported.

The report defines maternal mortality as the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of a pregnancy.

North Korea's maternal mortality rate has been on a gradual decline since reaching 129 in 2000, around the time the country fell into a severe famine following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The figure came down to 78 in 2005, 72 in 2015, 66 in 2020 and 67 in 2023, but the latest rate is still about 17 times higher than South Korea's corresponding rate of 4, the report showed.

The global average maternal mortality rate in 2023 was estimated at 197, and the United Nations aims to reduce it to fewer than 70 per 100,000 live births by 2023.

The global report released on World Health Day on April 7 showed that more than 700 women died daily from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth in 2023 worldwide.

The report titled Trends in maternal mortality shows a 40 per cent global decline in maternal mortality ratio (MMR, number of maternal deaths per 100 000 live births) between 2000 and 2023.

It showed that since 2016, the pace of improvement slowed down significantly, and that an estimated 260,000 women died in 2023 due to complications from pregnancy or childbirth.

More than 90 per cent of all maternal deaths occurred in low and lower-middle-income countries in 2023, said the report.

--IANS

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