Large numbers of the public remain unaware of the health issues facing women and children. Women and girls make up 60% of the world’s poorest and two-thirds of the world’s illiterate. Yet with education and empowerment, they can lead healthy lives and lift themselves and their families out of poverty. To devise a plan to make women and children’s health more visible, we must listen harder to voices from those countries where most maternal and child death take place. Too often we ignore these voices. A themed issue of The Lancet covers a range of global issues on maternal, child, and newborn health.
Updates
Maternal Mortality: It’s Time for Our Leaders to Take Notice
June 5th, 2010
By Martha Wainwright
Source: The Huffington Post
My story had a happy ending. Thousands more mothers would too if world leaders stick to a promise they made 40 years ago.
Once upon a time, I was working in the UK and seven months pregnant with my first child. After a show one evening, not feeling 100 percent, my husband Brad took me home to the place we were staying at in North London. I had been excited to get my last week of work over with and go home to the U.S. to prepare for our new arrival. But that night everything came crashing down. All plans flew out the window and Brad and I found ourselves in the emergency room at 2 a.m.
I was admitted right away, which scared me of course, and taken to the maternity unit. I was in pain and bleeding, but I felt calm -- believing, naively, that I was going to get out and still have a normal pregnancy. A midwife visited us and then the consultant. Then the pain became sharper, and my water broke. I yelled and the mood in the room went from calm and jovial to scary and serious. Brad took my hand and we realized that we weren't going anywhere.
Collecting Stories of Mothers and Babies Saved
June 1st, 2010
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.
Dying for Life-Pulitzer Center’s New Maternal Mortality Resources
May 26th, 2010
Today the Pulitzer Center, a nonprofit that sponsors and produces award-winning international journalism, launched a new interactive site focused on maternal mortality issues, "Dying for Life".
Restrictive Abortion Laws Account for Maternal Deaths
October 14th, 2009
New York – Increased contraceptive use has led to fewer abortions worldwide, but deaths from unsafe abortion remain a severe problem, killing 70,000 women a year, according to a major global survey from the Guttmacher Institute.
Thousands of Indian Women Dying in Childbirth
October 7th, 2009
Lucknow, India - Tens of thousands of Indian women and girls are dying during pregnancy and childbirth, despite government programs guaranteeing free obstetric health care, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a newly released report.