Women in sub-Saharan Africa are 175 times more likely to die from complications in pregnancy and childbirth than those in rich countries, three United Nations agencies have said.
But figures based on years of research into maternalmortality also showed the United States has a far worse record than many European countries or Canada.
A report from the World Health Organization (WHO), the UNICEF children's agency, and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said just under 530,000 women worldwide died during pregnancy or childbirth. Ninety-five per cent of these women were in Africa or Asia, 4 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and only 1 per cent in developed countries.
In Africa, a report from the three agencies said one in 16 women do not survive a pregnancy.
But in Europe, North America and Australasia, the average is only one in 2,800, according to a report .
"Many women deliver their children alone or with familymembers or other untrained attendants who lack the skills to deal with complications during delivery," said WHO Director-General Lee Jong-wook.
Thoryaya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of UNFPA, said many lives could be saved if women had better access to voluntary family planning.
The two countries with the worst record were Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, both suffering from years of civil strife, where the risk of death among pregnant women was one in six.
The report showed Sweden as by far the safest country for maternity in 2000 when only two women died - an overall risk rate of one in 29,800.
Canada recorded only 20 deaths, a rate of one in 8,700, but in the United States there were 660, at one in 2,500 pregnancies - a rate well below the overall richer world average. In Britain, there were 85 deaths, a risk rate of one in 3,300.