Pregnancy accounts for nearly 600,000 deaths of women each year; maternal health problems are the largest contributors to the disease burden of adult women. Conventional primary health care approaches, which included Traditional Birth Attendant training and antenatal screening, had little impact on the maternal mortality ratio. Instead, the Safe Motherhood paradigm now aims to ensure emergency obstetric care (EMOC) at the district hospital level for the 10-15% of women who develop potentially life threatening complications, and is moving towards recommending that professionals attend all deliveries.