Maternal mortality refers to the death of a woman while pregnant (or shortly after pregnancy) due to related complications. The MMR is the ratio of the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. In the United States, for example, the MMR is 11 per 100,000 live births. This is a worse ratio than in Ireland, which is 1 per 100,000 births (the best in the world). In Pakistan, it is around 490, a high MMR, which signals healthcare problems for women. Because women in developing countries have more children and worse healthcare, they face far more risk of death in childbirth. This gap, the book stresses, calls for global action.
Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) Quotes in Half the Sky
The Half the Sky quotes below are all either spoken by Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) or refer to Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR). For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 6
Quotes
“So lifetime risk of maternal death is one thousand times higher in a poor country than in the West. That should be an international scandal.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Half the Sky LitChart as a printable PDF.
Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) Term Timeline in Half the Sky
The timeline below shows where the term Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) appears in Half the Sky. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 6
While other public health issues have improved, maternity health largely hasn’t. The maternal mortality ratio (MMR) of developing countries is disgracefully worse than in the first world, and since women in...
(full context)
Chapter 7
It’s crucial to note that poverty does not make a high MMR inevitable. The authors write that over fifty years, Sri Lanka brought its MMR down from...
(full context)
