The Safe Motherhood Program of the Philippine Department of Health continues to work on improving the statistics on Antenatal Care Visits, Percentage of Facility Deliveries, Percentage of Health Professional Assisted Deliveries and Post Natal Check Ups. DOH aims to curb down the high maternal mortality in the country, which is almost 300 per 100,000 based on UNFPA report. This figure is higher than most countries in Southeast Asia. Globally, there are about 800 women dying each day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth.

The common causes of maternal deaths are hemorrhage, sepsis, obstructed labor, hypertensive disorders in pregnancy and complications of unsafe abortion. These causes are all preventable with proper diagnosis and intervention. Measures such as easy access to emergency obstetric care, increased number of births in health facilities assisted by trained birth attendants and universal access to reproductive health services including family planning should be assured.

Facility delivery with skilled attendant present is a very important strategy to reducing maternal mortality in the Philippines where only sixty percent of births are supervised or administered by skilled attendants.

To encourage poor pregnant women to deliver in health facilities in selected project sites, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Philippine Society for Responsible Parenthood, Inc. (PSRP) initiated the Cash for Health Assistance for 5,000 pregnant mothers who will avail of antenatal check ups, give birth in birthing health facilities and have postpartum check ups.

The Cash for Health Assistance ran for twelve months from March 2021 to March 2022 in 5 LGUs of Laguna Province namely Alaminos, Calamba, Sta. Rosa, Pagsanjan, Los Baños; and 5 LGUs of Rizal Province namely Antipolo, Baras, Cainta, Rodriguez and Tanay.