How to save the lives of 200,000 women a year

Preventing maternal deaths is not difficult, says Hannah Saidu, who manages a maternity unit in Sierra Leone, so long as “you have skilled midwives, and you know what to do”. If that is obvious, it still bears repeating. About 200,000 women in sub-Saharan Africa die in childbirth every year, largely from bleeding, hypertensive disorders and infection. The World Health Organisation estimates that there are 545 deaths in the region for every 100,000 live births, a rate four times higher than in south Asia and 90 times higher than in western Europe.