Maternal Mortality in Mexico; Critical epidemiological analysis, beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic: Análisis epidemiológico crítico

Abstract

Maternal mortality (MM) as a comprehensive indicator, reflects possible failures in the health - disease - care and care process, which exposes conditions of collective deterioration and social inequity. Its strict measurement and evaluation were criteria that supported decision-making in global health policy, especially during the development and evaluation of the Millennium Development Goals, which constituted a marker of achievement that currently could mean that it has lost relevance, relax the issuance of the new numerical goals for the Sustainable Development Goals in the 2030 agenda. In Mexico, the MM indicator was addressed during the first years of this century in a timely manner, to contrast the national achievement with the reduction committed by a global agreement in 75% during the period 1990 to 2015. The objective was not fully achieved, since the efforts were focused especially on actions from and for the health sector, without considering known historical traits of national inequity and without a comprehensive structural base effort that would operate with a vision of sustainability. Maternal death is directly affected by adverse circumstances and the occurrence of the recent Covid-19 pandemic evidenced the susceptibility of pregnant women, attributed to the disease, to the potential negative impact suffered by ineffective health services, in a country where a significantly high lethality was estimated; of a national health system that manifests magnificent difficulties and a population that is going through a regime change of relative uncertainty in terms of the right to health protection. The present work makes a historical recount of the MM in Mexico, emphasizing the impact that the pandemic had on this indicator of development, social inequity, and quality of health services.