ONE WOMAN in 20 dies during pregnancy and childbirth in some developing countries, compared with one in 10,000 in the developed world, according to the chairwoman of the Irish Family Planning Association.
Ms Catherine Forde was announcing the results of a Europe-wide survey on attitudes to family planning services at home and in developing countries, carried out by the International Planned Parenthood Federation, in conjunction with the United Nations Population Fund.
"Access to family planning and reproductive services is not a luxury, it is a matter of primary health care," she said. "Ensuring there are family planning services in developing countries is a very immediate way of saving the lives of women and improving the lives of children."
Ms Joan Burton, Minister of State, said she was particularly pleased with the high level of support recorded in Ireland for these family planning services.
Sixty-five per cent of Irish people supported the provision of contraceptive and family planning advice in developing countries, and 55 per cent supported sex education in schools there. This compared with a European average of 63 per cent favouring family planning advice and 40 per cent supporting sex education.
Ms Burton said the report endorsed the decisions taken at the Cairo conference on population, stressing the importance of reducing child and maternal mortality.
"In Ireland we have one of the lowest rates of maternal mortality in the world, with one death per 100,000 live births," she said. "There are 384 maternal deaths per 100,000 births in the developing world, and in Rwanda, for example, one in four children die before their fifth birthday."
She said that the right to decide on the number and spacing of children was intimately tied into the question of poverty and the distribution of wealth. "If we can say: `If you have a baby that baby can grow to adulthood', the pressure to have many children decreases.
"Family planning has to be part of a much broader approach to the quality of life of the mother and the whole family. We must also be extremely sensitive to local traditions and local culture and how local women approach such issues. It can't be a top-down approach."
According to the survey, Irish people were generally more supportive than other Europeans of the provision of all kinds of sex education and family planning services and advice for developing countries, with the exception of the provision of contraceptives to teenagers. Only 32 per cent of Irish people supported this, compared with a European average of 37.6.
Famine, poverty and homelessness were seen as the most serious effects of the world's population growth.