Maternal Health in Nepal and Other Low-Income Countries: Causes, Contexts, and Future Directions

Abstract

One longstanding challenge to improving maternal health in low-income countries has been the lack of access to skilled care during antenatal, birth, and postnatal periods. Problems of access can be attributed to a multitude of factors related to disadvantaged governments and economies, such as the lack of infrastructure including roads and hospitals, but also inequitable social hierarchies based on wealth, gender, and ethnicity or religion. Exceptional circumstances of war, political unrest, and natural disasters exacerbate these conditions. After the Millennium Development Goals have come and gone, what novel themes are emerging from research on maternal health in low-income countries? Using examples from over a decade of my field research in Nepal, as well as others from around the globe, I identify several important debates of particular relevance to future research in gender and demography on maternal health in the global South. I analyze the current and future directions in studies of maternal health in low-income countries such as Nepal, identifying three formidable challenges to achieving further declines in maternal mortality ratios in the future. I conclude by arguing that as demography’s hyperfocus on fertility rates declines in conjunction with declining population growth rates around the globe, demographers are ideally positioned to contribute more significantly to studies of women beyond the topic of how many offspring they produce – a more holistic consideration of women’s experiences of reproduction (or lack thereof) and their relation to demographic characteristics.