Maternal healthcare has improved in many parts of the world, but the risk of dying during pregnancy or childbirth remains sharply unequal. In 2023, about 260,000 women died during and following pregnancy and childbirth, while coverage of antenatal, delivery, and postnatal services still varied substantially by region, residence, and household wealth. These statistics describe population-level patterns, not individual medical advice.
Contents
- Global maternal mortality burden
- Regional disparities and lifetime risk
- Antenatal care coverage and equity
- Skilled birth attendance and childbirth services
- Postnatal and immediate newborn care
- Adolescent pregnancy and access
- Leading causes of maternal death
Global maternal mortality burden
The estimated number of women and girls dying each year from pregnancy and childbirth complications fell from 443,000 in 2000 to 260,000 in 2023. UNICEF reports that about 260,000 women died during and following pregnancy and childbirth in 2023, equivalent to an estimated 712 deaths each day. The global maternal mortality ratio was 197 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023, and the ratio declined by about 40% between 2000 and 2023. These figures are reported by UNICEF DATA and the World Health Organization.
Progress has not been linear. The estimated number of maternal deaths rose from 282,000 in 2020 to 322,000 in 2021. The figures for those years should be read as estimates for their stated periods, rather than as a continuous year-by-year measure of service quality. The WHO identifies a global Sustainable Development Goal target of fewer than 70 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030. Reaching that level from the 2023 estimate would require an annual reduction rate of almost 15% between 2023 and 2030, according to Maternal mortality.
The broad global trend therefore combines two realities: long-term improvement since 2000 and a distance from the 2030 target. Maternal healthcare statistics are most useful when the total number of deaths, the ratio per 100,000 live births, and the year of measurement are kept together.
Regional disparities and lifetime risk
Maternal mortality is concentrated in places where health systems face severe resource, access, or safety constraints. Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for about 182,000 maternal deaths, or 70% of the global total, in 2023. Southern Asia accounted for about 43,000 deaths, or 17% of the global total. The maternal mortality ratio was 454 deaths per 100,000 live births in sub-Saharan Africa, compared with 3 in Australia and New Zealand. These 2023 estimates are reported by UNICEF DATA.
Income and fragility show similarly wide differences. Low-income countries had a maternal mortality ratio of 346 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023, compared with 10 in high-income countries. The 37 countries classified as conflict-affected or fragile accounted for 61% of global maternal deaths while representing 25% of global live births. Their ratios were 504 deaths per 100,000 live births in conflict-affected settings and 368 in fragile settings. Settings classified as neither conflict-affected nor fragile had a ratio of 99. The WHO maternal mortality fact sheet reports these comparisons for 2023.
Lifetime risk translates the ratio into a longer view of exposure. In 2023, a 15-year-old girl’s lifetime risk of maternal death was 1 in 66 in low-income countries, versus approximately 1 in 8,000 in high-income countries. The corresponding comparison was 1 in 55 in sub-Saharan Africa versus 1 in 14,000 in Western Europe. These estimates come from UNICEF’s maternal mortality rates and statistics. They describe population risk over a lifetime, not the probability that a particular pregnancy will have a specific outcome.
Antenatal care coverage and equity
Antenatal care can identify risks and connect pregnant people with health services before birth, but coverage depends on how the indicator is defined. In 2023, 87% of pregnant women globally received antenatal care from skilled health personnel at least once. Approximately 70% received at least four antenatal care visits. The figures are different measures: one visit is not equivalent to four visits, and the source notes that care with at least four visits may include any provider. The source for these coverage estimates is UNICEF’s Antenatal care page.
Regional and household differences remain pronounced. At least four visits reached 57% of pregnant women in Western and Central Africa and 58% in South Asia in 2023. Globally, the coverage was 79% among urban women and 60% among rural women. It reached 81% among women in the richest wealth quintile but 49% among those in the poorest quintile.
| Population group | At least four antenatal visits, 2023 |
|---|---|
| Urban women globally | 79% |
| Rural women globally | 60% |
| Richest wealth quintile globally | 81% |
| Poorest wealth quintile globally | 49% |
| Western and Central Africa | 57% |
| South Asia | 58% |
UNICEF’s 2024 reporting framework gives a related but non-interchangeable measure: 67% of pregnant girls and women aged 15–49 received at least four antenatal care visits, compared with 66% in that framework’s 2021 baseline. The Global Annual Results Report 2024 explains that this reporting-framework figure is not a replacement for the global 2023 modelled estimate. The populations, estimation methods, reporting scope, and indicators differ.
Skilled birth attendance and childbirth services
In 2023, skilled health personnel assisted 86% of births globally. Coverage was 74% in sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa’s skilled birth attendance coverage increased by more than 30 percentage points between 2000 and 2023, while South Asia’s increased by more than 50 percentage points over the same period. These changes show substantial expansion, even though the remaining gap is material. The figures are from UNICEF’s Delivery care statistics.
Access also differed by residence and wealth. Skilled personnel attended approximately 77% of births among rural mothers and 93% among urban mothers globally in 2023. Among women in the richest wealth quintile, skilled personnel attended 96% of births, compared with 69% in the poorest quintile.
The place of birth and the type of delivery add another layer. Health facilities accounted for 98% of births in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, compared with 64% in sub-Saharan Africa. About 20% of newborns were delivered by caesarean section globally in 2023. Caesarean sections accounted for 47% of deliveries in Latin America and the Caribbean and 5% in sub-Saharan Africa. Globally, they represented 24% of urban births versus 14% of rural births. These percentages describe recorded population patterns; they do not establish that a higher or lower caesarean rate is appropriate for an individual.
Postnatal and immediate newborn care
Care after birth remains an important part of maternal healthcare. Globally, 69% of mothers received a postnatal health check within the recommended period in 2023, while 68% of newborns received a postnatal health check within that period. The estimates are reported by UNICEF’s Newborn care page.
Some immediate newborn-care measures show larger gaps. In the most recent national data sources cited for 2022, 55% of newborns in West and Central Africa lacked a recorded birthweight, as did 51% in East and Southern Africa. Only 46% of newborns were put to the breast within one hour of birth in the cited global newborn-care evidence for 2022. These measures have different denominators and periods, so they should not be combined into a single coverage score.
UNICEF’s 2024 reporting framework recorded postnatal care coverage at 66%, compared with a 68% baseline in 2021. That figure covers the stated framework and is not interchangeable with the global 2023 estimate of 69% for mothers or 68% for newborns. The distinction matters because the sources use different reporting scopes and populations.
Adolescent pregnancy and access
Adolescent pregnancy is closely connected to the need for accessible, appropriate maternal healthcare. In 2023, the global adolescent birth rate was about 1 birth per 1,000 girls aged 10–14 and 39 births per 1,000 girls aged 15–19. In sub-Saharan Africa, the rates were 3 per 1,000 girls aged 10–14 and 93 per 1,000 girls aged 15–19. Around 25% of adolescent girls and young women in both Western and Central Africa and Eastern and Southern Africa had given birth before age 18, representing an estimated 11 million young women. These statistics are from UNICEF’s early childbearing and teenage pregnancy data.
Globally, pregnant adolescents aged 15–19 had slightly lower reported coverage than all women and girls aged 15–49 in 2023. Antenatal care at least once reached 84% of pregnant adolescents versus 87% of the broader group. Skilled delivery care reached 77% versus 86%, and postnatal care for mothers reached 64% versus 69%.
The gap also appeared in newborn postnatal contact in West and Central Africa: contact for newborns of adolescent mothers reached 56%, compared with 61% for newborns of all mothers in 2023. These comparisons are descriptive coverage statistics and do not explain every reason for the difference.
Leading causes of maternal death
The WHO summarizes severe bleeding, infections, hypertensive disorders, delivery complications, and unsafe abortion as together accounting for around 75% of maternal deaths. In a 2020 analysis, haemorrhage caused around 80,000 maternal deaths globally and accounted for 27% of maternal mortality. Preeclampsia and other hypertensive disorders caused around 50,000 deaths and contributed 16% of maternal mortality. Underlying infectious and chronic conditions, including HIV/AIDS, malaria, anaemia, and diabetes, underpinned 23% of pregnancy- and childbirth-related mortality in 2020. These figures and the stated cause categories are reported in WHO’s 2025 summary.
Postpartum haemorrhage is a specific focus of maternal health planning. The WHO roadmap published in 2023 commonly defines it as at least 500 ml of blood loss within 24 hours after birth. It accounts for over 20% of reported maternal deaths and affects about 14 million women each year, according to A roadmap to combat postpartum haemorrhage between 2023 and 2030. The roadmap’s publication date, annual estimate, and definition should be retained when interpreting the statistic; it should not be presented as a 2023 or 2024 mortality estimate.
Taken together, these measures show why maternal healthcare statistics need context: global averages can improve while regional, economic, conflict-related, rural, and age-related gaps remain large, and coverage indicators from different reporting systems cannot be treated as interchangeable.