“They divide between industrialized countries and developing countries — particularly the least developed countries — is perhaps greater on maternal mortality than on any other issue,” the UN Children’s Fund said.

“No other mortality rate is so unequal,” it added.

The risk of a maternal death is one in seven women in Niger as compare to one in Iceland, the agency said in its report on the children around the globe, this year UNICEF focusing on maternal health and  neonates.

Approximately, 1,500 women die during pregnancy or childbirth each day, which are more than half a million per year. The death ratio in Africa or Asia is 95 percent. India alone accounts for 22 percent of the global total.

25 percent of these women die from post-partum hemorrhage, 15 percent from bacterial or viral infections, thirteen percent after abortion anomalies, 12 percent die with eclampsia and eight percent from obstructed labor.

The maternal deaths greatly affect the mortality of children, especially during first 28 days, when infants are at greatest risk of diseases.

Babies, whose mother died after the six week of their birth, hardly survive till the second birthday than infants whose mother stay alive, the report said.

In severe conditions as in Afghanistan 75 percent newborn babies whose mother dies after delivering child, die within one month, it added.

UNICEF said that, 80 percent of maternal deaths are preventable if women had access to primary health care at that particular time.