Updates

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern

Nearly a decade after being launched, a program that sends mobile health units down some of Bolivia’s most remote roads is continuing to deliver much-needed basic reproductive and maternal health care to thousands of indigenous girls and women. Because most indigenous girls and women are unable to travel to cities to receive the reproductive care they need, the International Planned Parenthood Federation—Western Hemisphere and Bolivia-based Center for Investigative and Educational Services’ (CIES) Sexual and Reproductive Health Clinic use these mobile health units to bring maternal health care to women who are the hardest to reach. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver

The West African country of Liberia is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be pregnant - 1 in 20 women will die during pregnancy or childbirth. This high statistic is the result of a protracted civil war that has damaged the country’s health infrastructure—there is severe shortage of trained personnel, a lack of medical equipment and supplies, and pregnant women often have to travel long distances just to reach a health clinic. But the government, under the leadership of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is welcoming innovative new projects to help lower the country’s high rate of maternal deaths. One such project began this month, with the opening of the first of seven ‘maternity waiting homes’ in Bong County, in north-central Liberia. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

Early marriage, combined with high levels of illiteracy, poor health services and poverty, have pushed Yemen's maternal mortality rate to the highest in the Arab world – 1 in 91 women will die during pregnancy and childbirth in Yemen. In a country where a woman will give birth to an average of 5.5 children in her lifetime, access to family planning services, local midwives, and quality health centers is essential to combating the nutritional deficiencies, infection during delivery, and unintended pregnancies that many Yemeni women face. In an effort to expand family planning options and safe delivery services in the region, USAID has partnered with Pathfinder International through the Basic Health Services Program (BHS). Operating in 5 governorates in north and eastern Yemen, the BHS program aims to renovate health facilities, improve the supply of maternal health commodities and services, and involve local leaders in reproductive health education. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern

More women die giving birth in India than in any other country in the world—an unfortunate distinction caused largely by the high number of deliveries in rural areas that occur without the support of trained health care providers. One Indian nonprofit, however, is saving the lives of women by using innovative practices to provide mothers around-the-clock delivery and newborn care and working to incorporate these interventions into the government-run rural health care services system. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver

As in many African countries, women in Mozambique often give birth outside of a health facility. Factors leading to this decision include having difficult access to health services, being scared of how they will be treated at a health facility, and feeling more comfortable delivering at home. But, when complications occur at home, women and babies are much less likely to receive the appropriate, life-saving care they need. Mozambique’s government and partners are working to change this trend by improving health care delivery through the Model Maternities Initiative (MMI). The goal of MMI is to improve maternal and newborn health care services while providing a supportive environment in which women give birth. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver  

Bordered by Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and the Gulf of Guinea, the West African country of Nigeria is the eighth most populous country in the world with a soaring maternal mortality rate.  As of 2008, the average maternal mortality rate was 840 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births and up to 1,549 deaths per 100,000 live births in rural areas. These statistics gave the Nigerian government a stern wakeup call: too many women were dying during pregnancy and childbirth with a weak healthcare workforce to support them. In 2009, the Nigerian National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHDA) took action to expand women’s access to skilled health care workers in rural and suburban regions with the Midwives Services Scheme (MSS). Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver

In Guatemala, young indigenous girls living in rural areas often do not have a chance to go to school. Instead, they help their families, living in social isolation and sometimes chronic poverty. They often marry young and have many children – the country’s fertility rates are among the highest in Latin America, with each woman bearing an average of 4.4 children over her lifetime. These indigenous girls have limited access to basic services such as water, sanitation, passable roads, and health care. To help break the cycle and enable these girls to reach their full potential, the Population Council, in collaboration with other partners, launched a program called Abriendo Oportunidades (Creating Opportunities) in 2004. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

The Southeast Asian country of Cambodia borders the South China Sea and is surrounded by Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. The maternal mortality ratio in 2008 was 290 deaths per 100,000 live births, but has been show to be as high as 493 deaths per 100,000 live births in rural areas.  Over the last decade, the Cambodian government has increased the availability of reproductive health services, but there is still great need for services among expecting mothers in rural areas. A national program is working to narrow the gaps in care, decrease the urban-rural disparities, and educate community-based health workers to provide lifesaving maternal care. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver

While my previous posts have focused on ‘solutions’ in the Global South, today we’re focusing on maternal health in the United States where it is getting more dangerous to be a pregnant woman. In 2007, the United States ranked 41 out of 171 countries for lifetime risk of death from pregnancy related causes. That means 40 countries had better maternal health outcomes than the U.S. In 2008, the United States dropped to 50, behind countries including: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republic of Korea, Kuwait, Qatar, and Puerto Rico. Today, in the U.S., 1 in 2,100 women will die in pregnancy and childbirth. Read more...

Health Care in its Social Context from SternerTurner Media on Vimeo.

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

Obstetric fistula, like maternal mortality, is an almost entirely preventable condition experienced by at least 2 million women in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East every year. When a woman has prolonged or obstructed labor delaying delivery of her baby, a hole can form in the tissue between her bladder, vagina, and rectum causing uncontrollable leakage of feces or urine and often resulting in a stillborn birth. Performing surgery to repair the fistula is successful 90 percent of the time, but many women in these regions often do not have access to trained surgeons and have little knowledge of the existing treatments. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver

Studies have shown that when women give birth less than 15 months after a previous birth, their risk of dying from pregnancy related causes is 150% higher than for women who wait longer to give birth again. When pregnancies are too close together, newborns can be born too soon, too small, or with a low birth weight, may not grow well and are more likely to die before the age of five. Birth spacing – allowing three to five years to pass between births – is a very important maternal and child health intervention. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

Roughly 78,000 women in India die during pregnancy and childbirth per year, some of the world’s largest numbers of country-level maternal deaths. Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra are the two largest and most populous states in India, generating a large percentage of the maternal mortality and morbidity in the country. In 2008, PATH aimed to address these disparities with the Sure Start Project, a holistic approach to maternal health systems strengthening. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Program Assistant at Women Deliver

The Western African country of Sierra Leone is gradually emerging from a protracted civil war, which poses unique problems for mothers-to-be. In 2009, Amnesty International named the maternal mortality rate in Sierra Leone a “human rights emergency,” which at 1/8 is one of the highest in the world. But recent changes in policy and support from NGOs like Life for African Mothers have increased the potential for markedly improving maternal and child health. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

Ayacucho is a mountainous and isolated region in the southeast corner of Peru. While the country has reduced its maternal mortality rate by 61% since 1990, rural women face serious barriers to quality emergency obstetric care (EmOC). Ayacucho is ranked 20^th among the 24 Peruvian regions for health indicators with only 3.7 OBGYNs working per 10,000 women of reproductive age. In response to these challenges, CARE and the Averting Maternal Death and Disability Program collaborated to improve EmOC for 48,000 rural women in the Ayacucho region. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Program Assistant at Women Deliver

The Eastern African country of Tanzania borders the Indian Ocean and sits between Kenya and Mozambique. Much of the population lives in rural areas and the maternal mortality ratio in 2008 was 790 deaths per 100,000 live births. Although contraceptive prevalence in Tanzania has increased over the last few decades, unmet need remains high, and one result of high unmet need is the problem of unsafe abortion, which contributes significantly to maternal deaths. A project that has been working to improve maternal health in Tanzania is doing so by advancing and supporting the availability, quality, and use of facility based reproductive health and family planning services. The ACQUIRE Project – Access, Quality, and Use in Reproductive Health – was a five year global project funded by USAID beginning in 2003. While global work ended in 2008, work continues in several countries around the world, including Tanzania, through USAID Associate Awards. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Program Assistant at Women Deliver

Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula. The state faces major challenges in improving and increasing access to health care services, but they are making significant strides. The Government of Tamil Nadu developed a Health Policy in 2003 with a focus on the health of low-income communities and families. The Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project supports this strategy through several interventions, especially those aimed at reducing infant and maternal mortality. The World Bank recently provided more funds, in addition to the original financing in 2004, to further improve health services quality and access while supporting state-wide management systems implementation. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Program Assistant at Women Deliver

If people don’t receive comprehensive sex education growing up, what is another option for disseminating critical sexual and reproductive health information to them? By targeting young married couples in Egypt, The Mabrouk! (“Congratulations!”) Initiative strategically focuses efforts on young couples preparing to start a family. Established in 2004, the initiative combines a multimedia campaign with interpersonal and community empowerment approaches as part of the Communication for Health Living (CHL) project to create sustainable social change related to health practices. Read more...

Living Proof | Egyptian Newlyweds Learn About Healthy Families from ONE Campaign on Vimeo.

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Program Assistant at Women Deliver

Five days after twin bombings hit the capital city of Uganda in July, the annual African Union Summit converged world leaders to discuss the theme of maternal and infant health, highlighting the issue of political instability and civil unrest in relation to development issues. While Uganda has made progress in improving maternal health, meeting MDG 5 will require a steep decline from 550 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2005, to 131 in 2015. It remains a daunting task, but Uganda has implemented a number of interventions aimed at improving maternal and child health and increased government funding towards such projects. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Program Assistant at Women Deliver

Nestled between China and India, Nepal is a mountainous and mostly rural country that has experienced years of political instability, making transport and communications especially difficult. The rugged terrain often prevents people from accessing health care, and many women give birth at home without the presence of a skilled health worker. In addition, it is common for girls to marry in their teens, which is particularly problematic as young women have an increased risk of pregnancy and childbirth complications. Read more...