Publication Cover
Global Public Health
An International Journal for Research, Policy and Practice
Volume 13, 2018 - Issue 5
315
Views
1
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Original Articles

Safer Muslim motherhood: Social conditions and maternal mortality in the Muslim world

&
Pages 567-581 | Received 07 Oct 2015, Accepted 19 Jul 2017, Published online: 20 Sep 2017
 

ABSTRACT

The greatest variation in maternal mortality is among poor countries and wealthy countries that rely on emergency obstetric technology to save a woman’s life during childbirth. However, substantial variation in maternal mortality ratios (MMRs) exists within and among poor countries with uneven access to advanced obstetric services. This article examines MMRs across the Muslim world and compares the impact of national wealth, female education, and skilled birth attendants on maternal mortality. Understanding how poor countries have lowered MMRs without access to expensive obstetric technologies suggests that certain social variables may act protectively to reduce the maternal risk for life-threatening obstetric complications that would require emergency obstetric care.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We defined the Muslim world as those countries in which Islam is the religion of more than 50% of the population. See appendix (A2) for a full list of countries and maternal mortality ratios.

2. Purchasing power parity (PPP) is an economic theory that estimates the amount of adjustment needed on the exchange rate between countries in order for the exchange to be equivalent to each currency’s purchasing power (Shiffman, Citation2000).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Division of Graduate Education [grant number 0718359].

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.