Kampala — Poor health facilities and poverty have been blamed for the high rate of maternal mortality in Africa.

Uganda's First Lady, Mrs. Janet Museveni said this last weekend in Munyonyo, near Kampala at the on-going international conference on family planning.

She urged African leaders to invest in maternal, child and family health as such gestures would yield high returns on investment for the continent in future.

Mrs. Museveni, said the situation of maternal health and child survival on the continent was a cause for concern and called for zero-tolerance of maternal deaths.

She said in sub-Saharan Africa, a woman's risk of dying from treatable or preventable complications of pregnancy and child birth over the course of her life was high compared to her counterparts in developed countries. "The tragedy of maternal death does not just end at the loss of the mother.

The children left behind experience untold sufferings. Every year, more than one million children are left motherless and vulnerable because of maternal death. Children who have lost their mothers are up to 10 times more likely to die before age five than those who have not.

"For every woman who dies in pregnancy and child birth, six others survive, but with chronic debilitating injuries and chronic ill-health. Among such injuries is obstetric fistula, which is a very de-humanizing condition. I am referring to this particular condition because I know how it affects our women, especially the very young ones," the First Lady said.

She regretted that the causes of the death among women and children are well known and are preventable, saying with low-cost or relatively cheap cost-effective technologies such lives could be saved.

She said: "We, therefore, have a solemn responsibility to ensure that women do not continue to die from preventable conditions whose remedies are available to us. We cannot just sit back and watch as our women continue to die so needlessly in pregnancy and child birth. That is the challenge we have today. No woman should die while giving life."

She highlighted the four pillars to reduce maternal mortality, namely ante-natal care, emergency obstetric care, skilled attendance at birth, and family planning, saying one of the effective, low-cost technologies to prevent unnecessary maternal mortality is family planning. Mrs. Museveni said "family planning reduces maternal deaths by avoiding risky pregnancies that are either too early, or too many, or too close or too late, adding that "it needs to be promoted as a key strategy in reducing maternal mortality at different levels."

She regretted men's nonchalance to family planning, saying "men are largely unsupportive to their wives during pregnancy and child birth." She said "men must know that they have a role to play if they want their women to survive."

Also, the Director of Technical Division, United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), Mr. Werner Haug, described family planning as the best documented practice to reduce maternal mortality as it is critical in preventing unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions.

He said access to modern contraceptives has the potential to reduce maternal deaths by up to 40 per cent, saying that such contraceptives would prevent 2.7 million needless infant deaths and the loss of 60 million years of healthy life, each year.

He said access to family planning could also help in preventing morbidities such as obstetric fistula and lowering transmission of HIV, adding that over 90 per cent of infants and young children with HIV contracted the virus through mother-to-child transmission.

Also, the representative of United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Dr. Scott Radloff, said several countries are not anywhere close to meeting the goals of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD)) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the commitment to improve maternal health.

Dr. Radloff said "we are not half way there to meeting the goals. In many countries, we have not reached a quarter. He said the Obama-led administration in the United States was committed to making family planning a priority.

While pointing out that maternal mortality represents the largest health inequity in the world, he said "we must ensure our daughters and sons have equal opportunities. When women are given opportunities to make choices on family planning good things happen in communities, states and countries."

The Conference is organized by the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomerg School of Public Health, United States of America and Makerere University School of Public Health, Kampala, Uganda.