Reducing maternal mortality: a review of progress and evidence-based strategies to achieve millennium development goal 5.

Maternal mortality represents a major global health challenge. Millennium Development Goal 5 (MDG 5) set a range of targets pertaining to maternal mortality and universal access to reproductive health care. While the realization of these targets seems unlikely, cost-effective population-level approaches in combination with evidence-based interventions targeting the acute management of the major causes of maternal mortality present the potential for considerable progress as the 2015 deadline approaches.