In addition, another 50 million expectant mothers suffer from maternal morbidity and acute complications of pregnancy. This, despite the ambitious government programmes on maternal and infant health care that have been running for several decades.

Making this observation here today, Delhi Medical Association (DMA) president Dr Rajesh Chawla said while the developed countries had managed to bring down the incidence of maternal death to a minimum through early interventions, it continued to be a shocking 18 times in the developing world. Infant mortality rate was also seven times higher.

``The need of the hour is to invest in the health care services for the mothers and children and making them available in slums and rural areas, besides urban slums,'' he said, adding that men tooneeded to be sensitised to their role in safe sexual and family life.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), maternal death or maternal mortality is defined as the ``death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of the termination of a pregnancy, irrespective of the duration'' but excluding the accidental cases. The national goal of the Safe Motherhood Programme is to bring down the incidence by half by the year 2,000.The important thing to remember is that every pregnancy faces risk. While supporting the programmes to reduce adolescent marriages, early or late pregnancies and too many pregnancies too soon and unwanted pregnancies cam also pose risk to the mother and child.