CEDAW/C/1996/3/Add.1 English Page 5 International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Conference. WHO is devoting its energies to developing practical and appropriate methodologies in this area. Priority will be given to involving women in the identification of needs and the development and evaluation of policies and programmes. Fertility regulation 13. Access to reproductive health information and services, including family planning, would lead to a vast improvement in women's health. Giving women power to take free and informed decisions about how many children to have and when to start and stop childbearing, as well as the ability to have them safely, is an important element in improving women's health and lives. As was clearly stated at the Beijing Conference, empowering women to take decisions about their sexuality and their fertility also empowers them in other domains such as household decision-making and participation in educational and economic life. Particular attention needs to be paid to the needs of adolescent girls for information and services, in keeping with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Maternal health 14. Women's poor nutritional and health status too often culminates in high rates of maternal mortality or chronic ill-health suffered by millions of women who experience complications during pregnancy and delivery. Half a million of them die each year as a result, mostly from infection, high blood pressure, obstructed labour and unsafe abortion. The death of a woman in childbirth must be regarded as a failure of society. In addition to the unnecessary loss of life, these deaths also affect families, particularly the children left behind. Most of these deaths can be either prevented or avoided through the application of cost-effective technologies at the community or health centre. 15. High quality services for pregnant women should be available as close to where women live and work as possible. However, this is often not the case: only 55 per cent of the births in developing countries are attended by trained personnel and only 37 per cent take place in health institutions. WHO seeks to encourage health-care providers to ensure that services are welcoming, flexible and low cost. Accessibility, appropriateness, affordability and quality are prime considerations in the provision of maternal health care. 16. The World Health Organization, in collaboration with UNICEF, has developed a package of interventions - the Mother and Baby Package. This package consists of a minimal set of interventions for the care of the mother and baby before and during pregnancy, during childbirth and after delivery. They focus on early detection and management of the most common complications in the mother and the infant. These interventions can be applied at community level or at the healthcentre level. Many life-saving procedures can and should be performed by midwives and other non-physician health workers in the health centre, which is the place where the most cost-effective interventions can be provided. This will facilitate access to care for all women, especially those disadvantaged by poverty, distance or sociocultural and economic barriers. /...