New drug can reduce maternal deaths ‘by a third’

Trial involving 20,000 women showed deaths from excessive bleeding after giving birth reduced by 30 percent.

Postpartum haemorrhaging (PPH) is the leading cause of maternal deaths worldwide, killing more than 100,000 women each year.

Around 6 percent of women suffer from uncontrollable bleeding after giving birth. In many cases, the lack of access to basic healthcare and medication is the difference between life and death.

But there is new evidence that a low-cost drug could save a third of those lives.