Lagos — Using a new study technique, UK researchers have confirmed that poverty increases a woman's chances of dying during or soon after pregnancy. Previous reports, based on population statistics, have yielded conflicting results regarding a link between the two.

The new method, known as the familial technique, is described in a report published in The Lancet. The theme of this first issue for 2004 is maternal reproductive health, considered to be one of the most neglected public health issues worldwide.

Urgent action is needed to prevent half a million maternal deaths each year from pregnancy-related causes, according to other reports in the journal. The main causes of maternal death globally include bleeding, overwhelming infection, abortion complications, blood pressure problems, and obstructed labour.

Key challenges in preventing such deaths will be for the world's nations to recognize the reproductive and health rights of women and to establish gender equality as a primary goal, Adrienne Germain, from the International Women's Health Coalition in New York, notes in an article introducing the reports.

The familial technique, developed by Dr. Wendy Graham and colleagues, could also play an important role in reducing maternal mortality. In creating the new method, the researchers, from the University of Aberdeen, used data from 11 household surveys conducted in 10 developing countries.

With the technique, the authors were able to link maternal mortality with poverty--a feat that has been difficult to achieve at the individual level. Across a range of countries, the researchers were able to confirm what has been suspected, but not proven--as poverty status worsens, maternal death risk increases.

Further analysis in one of the countries - Indonesia - revealed that about a third of all maternal deaths occurred in the poorest fifth of the population. Moreover, the risk of maternal death in this poorest group was nearly four times higher than that of the richest fifth.

"Our findings have shown the magnitude of the poor-rich gap in maternal mortality through a new method, and should be a stimulus to setting and monitoring poverty-relevant development goals," the investigators state.

In a related editorial, Dr. Davidson R. Gwatkin, from the World Bank (news - web sites) in Washington, DC, comments, "The information that previously existed about poor-rich differences in maternal mortality was limited to comparisons between regions." Because of the current research, "it is now possible to see that poor-rich differences within countries can also be important."