Sharp drop in Maternal Deaths Worldwide...

According to this yahoo news post the number of women dying in childbirth worldwide has dropped dramatically since 28 years ago. I do think this is great news if its true, however at the same time I see those numbers and think that it is still not even close to being low enough. Between 350,000 to 500,000 women still die in childbirth every year. I know that even with modern medicine we cannot expect to prevent ALL deaths related to childbirth but I think that these are scary numbers and it needs to still drop dramatically..
   The united states has an extremely high rate of Maternal deaths. Why is this? Is it due to poor choices by the American woman? Like poor nutrition, drug abuse, etc. Think about how a fast food and candy filled diet can lead to hypertension and diabetes. Or could this be caused by our soaring Cesarean section and intervention rates? I am a firm believer that women are capable of natural and intervention free birth. I also believe birth should not occur in the hospital unless mother and child are at serious risk and the need is really there. Don't get me wrong, interventions can be wonderful when used properly.. All I know is that you can see a trend between low maternal mortality rates and the use of midwifes and home-birth in certain countries. Maybe its a little of both problems, maybe it is something else entirely.  Well I just wanted to share this news piece on here. I think it proves nothing and doesn't change how anyone is feeling about the state of our current birth crisis.