Collecting Stories of Mothers and Babies Saved

At the Women Deliver 2010 conference, White Ribbon Alliance along with UNFPA will be debuting a multimedia exhibition called, "Stories of Mothers Saved." To celebrate the exhibit, they are hosting a countdown to Women Deliver with blog posts from people all over the world who have contributed to their multimedia exhibition. These blog posts include, Francois Zoungrana from Burkina Faso, Jameel Aldrbashi from Palestine, Smita Maniar from India, and Ahsan Mehboob from Pakistan.

Below is Ahsan Mehboob's full blog post as the Program Director of the Yar Muhammad Samejo Educational Society Development Organization, Pakistan. Originally posted on White Ribbon Alliance.

Greetings from Pakistan.

My name is Ahsan Mehboob and working on Mother and New Born Health Project. During the implementation of the project activities, I have found many success stories and also found some shocking stories when mother has died during their pregnancy.

The Local Community of Usta Muhammad  is living in very miserable situation especially women when they pregnant . They don't have any facility near to their homes. We are struggling since last five years for enhancement of capacity of local community regarding MNH issues.

After long struggle now, I think our organization has succeed for sensitization of local community regarding MNH issues. Now majority of women know their rights and familiar with health issues.

During conducting interviews with saved mother, I feel that after the capacity building of local community now it’s time to provide service delivery facilities to local community because they are facing a lot of problems due to non availability of transport, health center, trained and professional trained birth attendants(TBA)/lady health visitors (LHV), etc.

I am really inspired.

When I listen from women during interviews that they flatly refused their families and husband to deliver their babies with untrained Dai (traditional birth attendants). They demand their husband and family for proper care, diet, medicine and routine checkup from trained professional LHV/Doctor. People help women when they in labor pain. It was completely men dominant society now the behavior change has started in men and other local community regarding MNH. It will become our success to save mothers in future.