On October 9, 2025, the Nigerian government took a significant step toward improving maternal health by launching new national guidelines for managing postpartum haemorrhage (PPH), a leading cause of maternal mortality both in Nigeria and worldwide. Announced in Abuja by the Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Pate, these guidelines are part of a broader push to reduce preventable maternal deaths and ensure safer childbirth for millions of women across the country.
The new framework is ambitious: through the Decentralised Facility Financing (DFF) package, the government aims to reach at least 7 million pregnant women and oversee 6 million births annually. According to Prof. Pate, “Safe motherhood is achieved when every pregnant woman receives all the pillars of care, full antenatal services, skilled and safe facility-based delivery, respectful maternity care, and postnatal care integrated with family planning, especially postpartum and post-abortion services.”
At the heart of the initiative is the introduction of the calibrated drape, a simple but effective device designed to accurately measure blood loss during delivery. This tool, Pate explained, enables early detection of PPH, allowing health workers to intervene quickly and potentially save lives. “By incorporating the calibrated drape into maternal health protocols, we can better monitor and manage haemorrhage, ultimately saving the lives of mothers and their children,” he stated. The Ministry has already moved to ensure these drapes, alongside other essential maternal health commodities, are included in the Logistics Management Information System (LMIS) for procurement, tracking, and accessibility.
The urgency of these measures is clear. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), PPH remains one of the world’s leading causes of maternal death, responsible for about 45,000 fatalities annually. Most of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Newborn mortality, often due to birth asphyxia and complications of prematurity, is also a persistent concern, as Prof. Pate highlighted during the Abuja launch.
This Nigerian effort is part of a broader global movement. The WHO, in collaboration with the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) and the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM), has released updated global recommendations for preventing and managing PPH. These guidelines introduce new, objective diagnostic criteria for postpartum bleeding and call for a major shift in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. They also emphasize the importance of addressing underlying risk factors such as anaemia, which can increase both the likelihood and severity of PPH.
Prof. Anne Kihara, President of FIGO, explained that the new approach is centered on readiness, recognition, and response, ensuring that health workers can deliver the right care at the right time in diverse settings. “Women affected by PPH need care that is fast, feasible, and effective, driving progress towards eliminating PPH-related deaths,” Kihara said. Chief Midwife of ICM, Prof. Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent OBE, echoed this call to action, urging governments, donors, and partners to invest in midwives and maternal care systems: “With collective action and investment, postpartum haemorrhage can become a tragedy of the past.”
While Nigeria and other countries are pushing forward with new maternal health strategies, recent data from the United States offers a different, yet equally important, perspective on maternal mortality. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. recorded 669 maternal deaths in 2023, equating to a rate of 18.6 per 100,000 live births. This marks a 17% drop from 2022 and a dramatic 43% decline from the pandemic peak of 32.9 in 2021. Notably, only eight maternal deaths in 2023 were attributed to COVID-19, a stark decrease from the hundreds seen during the height of the pandemic.
These numbers have sparked debate in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade. Critics of pro-life laws had warned that restricting abortion would trigger a maternal health crisis, with predictions of rising deaths and overwhelmed hospitals. Yet, as Raimundo Rojas, Outreach and Events Director, pointed out, “Maternal deaths did not rise once protective pro-life laws were enacted. The fact is, they fell. And that trend has continued into early 2024, with provisional CDC data showing rates hovering near 17.9 per 100,000, on par with pre-pandemic levels.”
However, experts caution against attributing the decline solely to the Dobbs ruling or pro-life legislation. The 2021 spike in maternal deaths was largely driven by COVID-related complications, and as the pandemic’s grip loosened, deaths decreased. The leading causes of maternal mortality in the U.S. remain cardiovascular conditions, hypertension, mental health crises, haemorrhage, and infection. According to the CDC, nearly 80% of these deaths are preventable.
What has made a difference, Rojas argues, are targeted improvements in maternal health systems: access to quality prenatal, delivery, and postpartum care; Medicaid expansion; extended postpartum coverage; and perinatal quality initiatives. States that invested in these areas, especially those supporting community health centers and extending postpartum coverage, saw some of the steepest drops in maternal mortality. Yet, deep disparities persist—Black and Indigenous women continue to die at rates two to three times higher than their White counterparts.
Some states have reported increases in maternal mortality that coincide with post-Dobbs pro-life laws, but these trends are often linked to factors like hospital closures, delayed care, and lingering COVID-19 aftershocks. Even the Gender Equity Policy Institute, which reported a 56% increase in Texas’s maternal mortality rate in 2022, acknowledged that their results were “not statistically significant.”
Across both Nigeria and the United States, the message is clear: the most effective way to reduce maternal deaths is not tied to abortion access, but to ensuring women have access to timely, high-quality care before, during, and after childbirth. As Prof. Pate in Nigeria and public health advocates in the U.S. argue, real progress requires investment in health systems, training, and resources—whether that means calibrated drapes in Abuja or Medicaid expansion in Atlanta.
In the end, maternal mortality remains a global tragedy, but it is one that can be addressed with the right tools, policies, and political will. For millions of women and their families, these changes are more than statistics—they are a matter of life and death.
