Pakistan

Watch how Pathfinder is addressing Pakistan’s high rate of maternal mortality—empowering women to time and space their pregnancies—by building capacity of the government’s powerful cadre of Lady Health Workers.

Pathfinder strives to meet the needs of underserved populations. In Pakistan, we collaborate with in-country partners to reach women in rural, hard-to-reach areas, who can seldom afford the long journey to the health center.

Distance is just one barrier. Without the support from community leaders, family planning programs are unlikely to succeed. Here, religious leaders are mobilized to support healthy timing and spacing of pregnancies.

By expanding access to quality, integrated family planning, maternal, neonatal, and child health services in Pakistan, we can ensure more women and families have access to a range of critical services. We cannot afford to wait…

A Pakistani woman’s lifetime risk of maternal mortality is 1 in 93. Pathfinder is committed to working with the government of Pakistan and leaders of health to scaling up the interventions that save women’s lives.

Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world with more than 43 million women of reproductive age.

With maternal mortality rates estimated to be around 376 per 100,000 live births, approximately one in every 93 women in Pakistan will die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Pakistan also has a high unmet need for family planning at 25 percent, which is largely a result of lack of access to services and lack of trained medical professionals and staff able to provide family planning services, in addition to a high prevalence of misperceptions regarding the use of contraception.

Recognizing Pakistan’s need for reproductive health and family planning services, Pathfinder began working in Pakistan in 1950.

Today, Pathfinder works to implement programs promoting modern family planning methods, improved awareness of family planning options, and increased contraceptive prevalence. Pathfinder is working in close association with the provincial governments of Punjab and Sindh, as well as various local NGOs, focusing on generating demand for services and increasing awareness of the healthy timing and spacing of pregnancy, with the goal of improving the health of mothers and their children.