Situation of maternal health in Bhutan 2018

Bhutan has opened up to modernization in 1961s and since then good progress has been made in social sectors. Providing free health service and education has the top priority from the beginning to this day. With humble starting from almost bare grounds, the situation of maternal health has improved. Until the start of the Safe Motherhood program in 1994, health programs were not streamlined. The maternal mortality ratio (MMR) was 380 per 100000 livebirths in 1994. A lot of efforts with different programs have been implemented by the reproductive health program of Ministry of Health to improve maternal health. Main challenge has been with health human resource from the very beginning and it still stands to this day as number one challenge. With the inputs of various programs to improve maternal health and development in non-health sectors, the MMR has come down to 89 per 100000 livebirths in 2017.