A woman's lifetime risk of maternal death is the probability that she will die from complications of pregnancy or childbirth at some point during her entire reproductive life span. It is often used to illustrate the differences in the risk faced by women in developed and developing nations.
The newest WHO (World Health Organization) estimates that were shared with us are said to have found that a Haitian woman has a 1 in 17 chance of dying from pregnancy related causes in her lifetime.
(The lifetime risk of dying during pregnancy and childbirth is 1 in 76 for developing countries versus 1 in 3,000 for industrialized nations.) (Statistics from The White Ribbon Alliance.)
"Women are not dying because of diseases we cannot treat .... They are dying because societies have yet to make the decision that their lives are worth saving." -Mahmoud Fathalla
