Reframing maternal and newborn health after the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 agenda: The role of The Lancet Commission on Maternal and Newborn Health

Maternal and newborn health remains one of the most urgent unfinished agendas in global health.Despite decades of investment and important progress, a woman still dies every 2 minutes from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth [1-3].In 2023, an estimated 260,000 women died from maternal causes globally, while approximately 2.3 million newborns died during their first month of life in 2022 [1, 2].This translates into nearly 700 maternal deaths and more than 6000 newborn deaths every single day.These deaths are not only personal tragedies.They have profound consequences for families, communities, and societies, affecting children's survival, economic stability, and long-term social development.Most importantly, most of these deaths are preventable.Yet progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015 as a shared framework for improving health and development by 2030, has slowed dramatically [4].Within SDG 3, maternal and newborn survival remains a central target, but the global maternal mortality ratio continues to remain far above the target of fewer than 70 deaths per 100,000 live births.With 2030 approaching and many targets increasingly unlikely to be met, the global health community faces a critical moment: not only to reassess what is being done, but also to reconsider how priorities are defined and whether current approaches are truly reaching the women and families most in need.Against this backdrop, The Lancet Commission on Maternal and Newborn Health was launched in 2025 as a multidisciplinary global initiative bringing together researchers, clinicians, policymakers, advocates, and representatives from international organizations [4].Lancet Commissions are independent scientific collaborations