PTI
 
New York, Oct 8: An estimated 80,000 pregnant women and new mothers die each year in India from preventable causes, including haemorrhage, eclampsia, sepsis
and anaemia, making it an average of 301 deaths for every 100,000 live births annually, a new UN study has said.

Many other deaths go unrecorded because they occur at homes or before the woman reaches a medical facility for help, it said.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has launched the Maternal and Prenatal Death Inquiry and Response (MAPEDIR) programme to collect data and has already analysed cases of some 1600 cases across six Indian states to identify medical and social reasons behind maternal deaths.

The agency is working with health authorities in selected districts in the six states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan and West Bengal to promote surveillance as a crucial strategy to cut both maternal and child mortality.

UNICEF said if India is to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of slashing maternal mortality figures by three quarters by 2015, it must tackle critical social and economic factors, such as low status of women, poor understanding of many families about health care, the cost of such care, and also the low standard of roads and other forms of transport.

Last month a broader UNICEF report found that at least 500,000 women die unnecessarily around the world each year because of complications from pregnancy or childbirth, with the vast majority of deaths occurring in the developing world.

MAPEDIR is being funded by the British Department of International Development, and UNICEF is providing technical support to the initiative.