Motherhood is often a positive and fulfilling experience, but for some women in Ghana, it is associated with agony, ill-health and even death.
The experience of Adwoa Kumi Yeboah, a 30-year-old farmer and mother of five from Abwokwa in the Central Region, is one of the fulfilling experience a woman can have in Ghana, but not without drama.
Initially, Ms Yeboah did not want to be a mother. So she took the option all desperate women in her position will take- to abort the foetus.
"I was rushed to the hospital one Tuesday afternoon bleeding after taking some herbal concoction.
"This is because the man I was dating said he was not responsible for it and I had no parents to take care of me and my unborn baby.
"Thank God some good Samaritans took me to hospital. When I gained consciousness I found myself at the hospital with a doctor, nurses and some people from my village around me," she told the Ghana News Agency (GNA).
Ms Yeboah said through the good maternal education she received from the health workers of Our Lady of Grace Hospital in the Breman Asikuma District, she recovered without any medical complications.
The happy ending story of Ms Yeboah unfortunately is not the lot of a number of women globally.
Every day, 1500 women die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related complications world wide, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
WHO defines maternal health as the physical condition of women during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period.
It says the major direct causes of maternal morbidity and mortality include haemorrhage, infection, high blood pressure, unsafe abortion, and obstructed labour.
In 2005, there was an estimated 536 000 maternal deaths worldwide. Most of these deaths occurred in developing countries, and most were avoidable.
Improving maternal health is one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000.
The MDGs is committed to reducing the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters between 1990 and 2015 globally.
However, between 1990 and 2005, the maternal mortality ratio declined by only five per cent.
Achieving MDG five, requires accelerating progress.
Dr Elias Sory, Director General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), in an interview with the GNA, said the Service registered 43 maternal deaths in its health facilities throughout the country between January and June last year with the Northern Region accounting for 25 of the cases.
He noted that most cases of maternal deaths are preventable and that the GHS is adopting measures to enhance safe motherhood services in health facilities, to guarantee the reproductive health rights of women and address the problem of unsafe abortion.
The high rate of maternal mortality in Ghana raised many fundamental questions, which policy makers must address, since most hospitals in the country lack access to essential obstetric personnel and services.
It is refreshing to hear that Programme for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH) Ghana, an international non-profit organisation, would begin a three-year project called the Oxytocin Initiative in the country to complement government's efforts to reduce maternal mortality.
Oxytocin is a life saving drug recommended by the WHO for the prevention and treatment of postpartum haemorrhage.
At the opening of the PATH Ghana office, Mrs. Cofie said the Bill and Melinda Gates funded project sought to reduce high maternal mortality rate in the country, particularly those attributable to postpartum haemorrhage and to facilitate government's efforts to achieve the MDGs.
"It will improve maternal health and survival in Ghana by creating a strong evidence base to support expanded safe use of Oxytocin.
"The project involves the introduction and administration of Oxytocin via the Uniject injection device, a pre-filed, auto-disable device that will be used by community-based health workers," she said.
The message of hope from Ms Yeboah and the various stakeholder interventions to reverse the scourge of maternal deaths is a delightful progress, handy enough to put Ghana on the pathway of achieving MDG five.
There is however, more work to be done and the country must warm up to safe every innocent woman from dying because of childbirth.
By Albert Oppong Ansah