Improving maternal health to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in the Eastern Mediterranean Region: a youth lens.

The fifth Millennium Development Goal (MDG) aims to improve maternal health. The 2 targets set for this goal are to “reduce by three-quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio” and “achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health”. Six indicators have been selected to help track progress towards these targets: maternal mortality ratio; proportion of births attended by skilled health personnel; contraceptive prevalence rate; adolescent birth rate; antenatal care coverage (at least 1 visit and at least 4 visits); and unmet need for family planning [1]. This paper briefly outlines the general situation in relation to maternal health in the Eastern Mediterranean Region of the World Health Organization (WHO) and goes on to focus on the perspective of adolescent pregnancy and reproductive health.