Updates

By: Joy Lawn, Save the Children; Originally posted on the Healthy Newborn Network (HNN) here

If you were born today in Africa, you would face the same risk of dying in your first month of life as if you were born during World War II in Great Britain. That’s 11 times greater risk than British babies face today, seven decades later. Somalia is Africa’s most dangerous country to be born, with a risk almost 20 times higher. PLoS Medicine has just published a new study on newborn deaths by the World Health Organization, Save the Children and partners showing that, increasingly, a baby’s chance of surviving the first month of life depend on where that baby is born. Read more...

By: Susana Edjang, Project Manager for Every Woman Every Child effort in the United Nations’ Secretary-General’s Global Health Team

As people across the globe deliberate, whose perspective should be sought out and how can their participation be ensured?

I would like to think that everyone – no matter the background, gender, ethnic group or age – stops to think about the value of the lives of those mothers, sisters, friends, partners and daughters, and sons, that someone just like us loses unnecessarily every day due to preventable causes. The good news is that today we are doing more than just thinking or talking about it. The Every Woman Every Child effort, spear-headed by the UN Secretary-General, aims to ensure that we all work together and that our efforts towards saving and improving the lives of women and children, are better coordinated and enhanced putting into action the Global Strategy for Women and Children’s Health. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern at Women Deliver

For generations, men in the villages nestled in the remote mountains of the Ifugao province in the northern Philippines have used the “ayod” or hammock to carry the sick to hospitals and medical facilities. Now, this traditional “foot ambulance” is increasingly becoming the heart of a community-grown maternal health system that is saving the lives of women and girls and keeping families and communities intact in this rural area. Read more...