MY grandmother died in childbirth in 1903. She had just given birth to twins, my father and his sister. The extended family lived in the country, far from the most advanced medical care which, even in those days, would probably have been able to do little to save the young woman.
All this, I vaguely assumed, was behind womanhood now, nearly a whole century later. The risks of dying from septicaemia or a last minute delivery problem must be minimal, in much the same way as catching smallpox or rabies.
But the latest issue of UNICEF's Progress of Nations tells me different. Nearly 600,000 women across the world are dying in childbirth every year 20 per cent more than had previously been believed.
The Progress of Nations contains extensive statistics collected in the early 1990s charting the health and well being of children and their mothers. It shows that pregnancy is not a dubious venture for women over 40, as is the standard advice in Irish health clinics. In the developing world pregnancy is a hazard no matter what the age, and around 15 million every year have serious and permanent health impairment from bearing children.
In India alone the figure for deaths in childbirth is 150,000, and an estimated three quarters of these live within a few miles of a hospital or clinic. In the richer industrialised nations the figures sink to the levels that have created my impression that my grandmother's fate was now rare.
In Ireland, using figures for 1990 as a sample year, there were 10 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Britain is slightly better, with nine, Germany surprisingly high at 22. But that palls when one looks at Haiti (1,000, a 1 per cent chance) or Sierra Leone (1,800).
About 75,000 of the deaths are the result of attempting unsafe abortions, by drugs, violent massage or other means. When these women die in horrible pain, as Peter Adamson, the report's editor, unflinchingly points out they leave about one million orphans.
The inescapable conclusion one reaches after reading the findings of the UNICEF researchers is that this situation would not be anywhere near as bad if men had babies. The report says such deaths and injuries could be prevented, but little is done because they are regarded as a women's problem".
UNICEF says family planning and associated care receive less than 2 per cent of government spending in the developing world, and less than 2 per cent of all international aid. Yet the basic fact that family sizes and the inability to control them place a strain on every resource in a community would seem obvious.
The Progress of Nations rounds up the conditions of children on a number of fronts. Health, safety and poverty are the main concerns. One of the most surprising statistics is the number of children in the US living in poverty (defined as having less than 90 per cent of households in the country).
Statistics from a variety of sources including the Luxembourg Income Study of 1991 indicate that more than one fifth 21.5 per cent of children in the US live in poverty. The figure for children living in solo mother families is almost exactly the same, 21.2 per cent, although there is no direct link.
The report goes on to sub headline the fact that "Only Ireland and Israel have poorer children than US" (among Western countries), another surprising claim. This again is based on the 1991 study, and shows Ireland bottom in US dollar terms for the wealth of children.
Reuter ados Europe must step up its battle against trafficking in women, the European Justice Commissioner, Ms Anita Gradin, said yesterday.
A Vienna conference heard that hundreds of thousands of poor women from eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia, were lured to the West expecting to work as waitresses, maids or dancers. Instead they were forced into prostitution and pornography.