Action urged on childbirth deaths
Updated on 21 September 2008
The Prime Minister's wife Sarah Brown has given a rare public speech at a fringe meeting at Labour's conference.
The UK's 'First Lady' spoke of the need to tackle deaths in childbirth in developing countries.
Mrs Brown, a mother of two, spoke of the need for action to meet the so-called Millennium Goal 5 - a United Nations target to reduce maternal mortality by 70% by 2015.
In countries such as Afghanistan women have a one in six chance of dying in childbirth - in the UK it is one in 8,000.
"It seems baffling to me we still live in a world where every minute a woman dies in child birth," Mrs Brown said. "Half the world's women are still giving birth on the floor of their homes, alone. Politicians, often male ones, have often seen maternal health as a difficult one to solve and not necessarily one at the top of the priority list."
The meeting was told Labour had trebled aid to developing countries since 1997.
"I am so proud of our record in Government for international development that Gordon has always made a priority," she said. "The attention for maternal mortality is beginning to change and not before time."
Mrs Brown said only basic health resources were needed to stop women dying in pregnancy but often countries lacked the political will to fund and provide midwives and health workers.
Maternal health was on the agenda of the last G8 meeting of major nations but there was still "a long way to go".
She added: "Women in the world are at the heart of families, communities and countries. We must all play a part in saving lives. We owe it to the thousands of pregnant women giving birth every day in fear of their lives."
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