Updates

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver

Many developing countries struggle to address their health needs without a complete picture of what those health needs are. The determinants of maternal mortality can be attributed to direct, indirect or underlying factors; it is important to identify the causes of pregnancy-related deaths to ensure resources are allocated most effectively to specific intervention and prevention strategies. But what do you do if you don’t have that data? Ghana is working to increase coverage of civil registration and quality of death attribution by training community-based volunteers. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Strategic Partnerships Associate at Women Deliver

In India, boys continue to be preferred over girls, permeating gender norms and attitudes throughout the country. Boys carry on the family name, don’t require expensive dowries for marriage, and have more opportunities in education and the workplace. In 2011, 914 girls were born to every 1,000 boys, and gender inequalities are only increasing. 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...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver

In Angola, child and maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the world. There are multiple causes for this dire distinction, and Pathfinder has implemented programs to help address two of the most prominent – malaria and a lack of access to safe delivery facilities. Although malaria is preventable, it is a major cause of maternal and newborn illness and death in the country. Read more…

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern at Women Deliver

Rukia Seif holds an unusual place in her community.

In addition, to being a mother of three, Seif is a population, health, and environment (PHE) peer educator in her Tanzanian village on the outskirts of Saadani National Park. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver?

In honor of World Breastfeeding Week, I’d like to highlight a new innovation that has the potential to save the lives of babies born to HIV-positive mothers. With support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, researchers from Family Health International, University of Cambridge, Drexel College of Medicine, and PATH have developed a low-cost nipple shield which will deliver HIV preventative compounds to a newborn during breastfeeding. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern at Women Deliver

The Kenyan finance ministry this month announced plans to allocate $3.4 million in the current fiscal budget to provide free sanitary pads to school girls in an effort to remove a major barrier to education in the east African nation. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

Last month I attended a session at the 38th Annual Global Health Council Conference on immunization as a platform for family planning integration. Today I’d like to highlight a program featured at this session: a project aiming to reach high-need, postpartum women in Bamako, Mali with family planning services and counseling. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern at Women Deliver

While Timor-Leste obtained independence almost 10 years ago, it continues to suffer the aftereffects of a decades-long independence struggle against Indonesia and to face many challenges, such as building its health system and lowering its high fertility and maternal mortality rates. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver

In Bihar, one of India’s least developed and most populous states, men and women seeking information on contraceptives have faced barriers of all kinds: cultural, financial and socio-economic. The need for action is apparent: 58 percent of the population is under age 25, the median age of marriage for women from traditional villages is 15, and 28 percent of women give birth to their first child before the age of 18. In response, Pathfinder’s Promoting Change in Reproductive Behavior (PRACHAR) Project has been working since 2001 to transform attitudes and behaviors around contraceptive use and demand, with the aim of delaying and spacing pregnancies among adolescents and newlywed couples. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern at Women Deliver

The Moroccan Ministry of Health last week hosted a scientific meeting to share lessons on its success in reducing maternal mortality by 60 percent since 1990—a success that has won it the distinction of being “one of a small group of countries ‘on track’ to achieve MDG 5 by 2015,” according to UNFPA. Read more...

By: Rachel Cernansky, winner of the Women Bloggers Deliver contest

The infant mortality rate in India is estimated at about 39 deaths per 1,000 live births and nearly double that in rural areas --so it's notable when a new project results in a 45 percent drop in newborn deaths. That's precisely what has happened with a community mobilization effort in India and Bangladesh. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver

A few months ago I wrote about a program that works to empower young women in Guatemala by providing essential health, education, and social services to an underserved population. Today I’d like to highlight the flip side: a gender project that works with men in rural Ethiopia.

In Ethiopia, the lifetime risk of maternal death is 1 in 40 and the contraceptive prevalence rate is just 15 percent. HIV prevalence in the Amhara region is significant. The Addis Birhan (meaning “new light” in Amharic) program seeks to promote HIV prevention by changing attitudes and promoting equitable relationships through educating and engaging husbands in issues related to reproductive health, including HIV prevention, family planning, gender violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and domestic responsibilities. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

Across the developing world, women workers are a rising force in manufacturing industries, yet many of these women don’t have access to adequate healthcare or knowledge of their health-related rights in the workplace. The HERproject, founded by BSR (Business for Social Responsibility), is working to change that with a peer-driven health education initiative that focuses specifically on women workers in factories in Pakistan. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern at Women Deliver

The most recent graduates from Midwives for Haiti are some of the first health professionals on the island nation to use an obstetric kit specially equipped to prevent death from excessive bleeding after childbirth. Read more...
 

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern at Women Deliver

Nearly one-half or 48 percent of girls in Yemen are married by the age of 18 years old, with 14 percent married by the time they turn 15 years old. In addition, it is common for girls in remote areas to be betrothed as young as 9 years old and for 57 percent of girls living in poverty to be married age 18. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern at Women Deliver

The government of Mali in 2005 began offering free caesarean sections in public hospitals, health clinics, and army hospitals. The policy change was driven by the reality that high maternal costs often prevent women from giving birth in health care facilities—and catastrophic costs, such as for caesareans, have the “potential to plunge a household into poverty.” Six years later, the policy is associated with a steady increase in caesarean rates, a drop in maternal and neonatal mortality, and a rise in institutional deliveries in the West African nation, according to a recent report by USAID’s Health System 20/20. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver

In Lesotho, community health workers are saving lives, one mother at a time. Lesotho is a small Southern African country that faces numerous development challenges. There is a high prevalence of HIV and AIDS – nearly 1 in 4 adults is HIV positive – and there are high rates of maternal mortality and morbidity. The mountainous terrain makes it difficult for many people, especially pregnant women, to reach healthcare services. Partners In Health (PIH), with support from the Elton John AIDS Foundation, began a pilot project in 2009 to increase services to pregnant women in the area surrounding the Bobete health center and reverse this problem. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

Access to maternal health services is a challenge for many women in developing countries, but women in crisis settings are especially vulnerable to reproductive health risks and maternal health emergencies. Over 42 million people in the world are uprooted and living far from their home countries or regions for months or years at a time—almost half of them are women. Read more...