Saving Mothers, Giving Life Partnership Announces 50% Reduction in Maternal Deaths in Target Facilities

Today, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and partners released the Saving Mothers, Giving Life Mid-Initiative Report, which shows nearly a 50 percent reduction in maternal deaths in target facilities in Uganda and Zambia in the first 2½ years of the initiative.

Saving Mothers, Giving Life (SMGL) is a public-private partnership launched in 2012 that takes an integrative, holistic approach to health systems in Uganda and Zambia. Working in close alignment with the Ugandan and Zambian Governments’ national health plans, SMGL targets the critical period of labor, delivery, and 48 hours postpartum and has put in place interventions to make high-quality, safe childbirth services available and accessible to women and their newborns.

Launched today at the Global Maternal Newborn Health Conference, the SMGL Mid-Initiative Report has shown dramatic progress in the first half of the initiative:

• Maternal mortality fell by 53 percent in target facilities in Zambia and by 45 percent in Uganda.
• Zambia saw an 81 percent increase in the number of women receiving treatment to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS to their infants.
• The number of women giving birth in a facility rose by 30 percent in Uganda and by 43 percent in Zambia.

Saving Mothers, Giving Life implements evidence-based interventions at the district level and can be replicated in countries across the globe. Expansion of the initiative is currently underway in 16 new districts in Uganda and Zambia, as well as one state in Nigeria. Through scaling up the SMGL model and replicating its approach in other countries, we can help bring within reach our vision to end preventable child and maternal deaths within a generation.

Learn more

• Read the full Mid-Initiative Report
• Learn more about USAID’s Maternal and Child Health efforts
• Read the Impact blog by Claudia Morrissey Conlon, MD, MPH, U.S. Government Lead, Saving Mothers, Giving Life and USAID Senior Maternal Newborn Health Advisor
• Check out USAID’s 2015 Acting on the Call Report on our work to end preventable child and maternal deaths.

Photo credit: Anne Jennings/Rabin Martin