By: Joanna Hoffman, Special Projects Manager
Last week, Lifeway Foods announced the launch of its national Every Mother Counts Sweepstakes and fundraising campaign to support maternal health. Founded by model, filmmaker and maternal health advocate Christy Turlington Burns, Every Mother Counts is an advocacy and mobilization campaign to increase education and support for maternal health worldwide.
Lifeway is a leading supplier of kefir and organic kefir cultured dairy products. Specially-marked bottles of Lifeway’s Lowfat Kefir will contain entry codes on the bottle cap, which can then be entered into the sweepstakes app at the Lifeway Kefir Facebook Page. All entries for the grand prize must be received before March 11 and the winner will be announced on March 14. Read more...
Davos, Switzerland – January 25, 2012 - 
I'm delighted to announce the launch of 
"Oh you're one of the international people," a young nurse from Washington, D.C. said to me at last week's 
In the early 1970s, Guadalupe Arizpe De La Vega read a newspaper article about a poor mother of nine children who was imprisoned after she stabbed herself in the stomach to prevent a tenth pregnancy. After visiting the woman in jail, De La Vega realized how limited information on and access to family planning services were in Mexico, and particularly for poor and marginalized women. 
After an amazing amount of progress on women’s and children’s health in 2011, I’m starting off 2012 by heading to Bangladesh. I’ll be learning even more about two of the biggest killers of children—pneumonia and diarrhea. Bangladesh has made incredible progress in recent years, reducing the number of childhood deaths by 65 percent since 1990. I’m excited to learn what they’ve done right and the challenges that remain. 
Women Deliver is proud to partner with the Million Moms Challenge, a new social media campaign bringing together millions of Americans with mothers in the developing world to share information and solutions relating to healthy pregnancies, deliveries and children. Social media is an effective, far-reaching way to allow moms and maternal health advocates worldwide to discuss critical challenges and life-saving innovations. 
Two reasons—a lack of spare parts and too few highly trained technicians—are often cited as the causes of large numbers of out-of-service laboratory and medical equipment across the developing world. As a result of broken equipment, already burdened health systems find it increasingly challenging to accurately diagnose and treat patients.
A Johns Hopkins University affiliate has been awarded $1.6 million from the GE Foundation to support the development of lifesaving technologies for women and children in developing countries.
Late last year, Yemen, on behalf of the