POPCOM: Rising number of deaths among mothers, newborns reflects impeded access to local maternal-health services

Nowadays, giving birth in the Philippines does not necessarily usher in new lives, or prolong them, as rising cases of obstetric deaths prove otherwise. Among Filipino babies and their mothers, the increasing rate of their mortalities in the past two years has been indicative of the difficulties in obtaining services related to maternal and newborn health, which have produced “fatal consequences,” the Commission on Population and Development (POPCOM) said. Based on a recent release from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the number of fatalities classified under “other direct obstetric deaths,” which indicate access to maternity services, posted a notable increase in the first six months of 2022 at 468, compared to 425 in the same period last year. According to the World Health Organization, direct obstetric deaths, or direct maternal deaths, are those “resulting from obstetric complications of the pregnant state (pregnancy, labor and puerperium), and from interventions, omissions, incorrect treatment, or from a chain of events resulting from any of the above.” The ranking of the said cause of death went up to #39 in 2022, from #44 in 2021. Its share also doubled this year to 0.2, from 0.1 in 2021. Among causes of deaths, the above-mentioned reason figured prominently with a double-digit positive percentage change (10%) compared to all others. The other one with a single-digit positive change was for tetanus. While newborn deaths were lower at 3,686 (from 4,424 in 2021), it is now ranked #17, from #18 last year. POPCOM also noted that, as the number of deaths overall have declined, the “weight” of certain deaths may increase, based on their share of the number of those who died due to similar causes. “This condition indicates an issue in accessing appropriate, quality and timely services from health-care facilities. It poses the challenge to improve our local health system for emergency obstetric and newborn care, which was definitely affected during the pandemic,” stated POPCOM Officer In Charge-Executive Director (OIC-ED) Lolito R. Tacardon. “Our health system should now be slowly recovering from the deluge of cases caused by the pandemic to ensure adequate services for other health concerns such as those related to maternal, infant and child health.” Tacardon added that, although fatalities among under-5-year-old Filipino children have drastically gone down from 103 in 1960 to 26 in 2020 according to PSA data, there still remains a gap in enhancing health conditions of mothers and young kids to further reduce child mortalities and improve survival rates of both. POPCOM’s interim chief expressed the agency’s aspirations that more medical attention should be provided to mothers and their babies, especially in the latter's first 1,000 days of their lives—deemed the most critical by health practitioners. “This also calls for the full and intensified implementation of the Universal Health Care Law, as well as the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law, which mandate the upholding of the well-being and overall health of Filipino moms and their young children,” he concluded. ###