Updates

Yesterday, the world’s largest malaria conference, The 5^th Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM) Pan-African Conference, opened with a call for substantial and sustained support for research to guide evidence-based policies and the development of new malaria tools, which together could save countless lives. Watch this interview video with Dr. Rose Leke, University of Yaounde 1, Cameroon, where she discusses the dangers of malaria during pregnancy — and how to prevent it.

This weekend, the Christian Science Monitor published an article called, “Amid war Afghanistan trains thousands of new midwives.” The article says:

Pashtoon Azfar, head of the Afghan Midwives Association, says the number of trained midwives has grown nearly six-fold since rebuilding effort in Afghanistan began. “In 2002, we had 467 midwives, but no one knew how qualified they were; for years, they had received no access to training,” says Ms. Azfar, also a midwifery specialist with the international nonprofit health organization Jhpiego, whose maternal health programs are funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Today, there are more than 2,400 midwives around the country who have been trained in a standardized and accredited two-year program, she says.

Despite progress, health system shortfalls and gender discrimination are severely impacting women’s health worldwide, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) report Women and Health: Today’s Evidence, Tomorrow’s Agenda.

Cell phones have cut dramatically the number of women dying during childbirth in Amensie village in south-central Ghana, according to an article posted on AlertNet.

The Maternal Health Task Force has asked us to distribute a request for letters of intent to submit funding proposals that will focus on indigenous developing country initiatives. Through this request, they are seeking innovative ideas from non-profit NGOs based in developing countries working to improve maternal health in their communities.

Suzanne Ehlers, the Interim President of Population Action International, wrote an op-ed piece for the Huffington Post on the early findings of their joint research with the Maternal Health Task Force on maternal health supplies. Ehlers writes in her post about maternal health research in Bangladesh and Uganda where they're learning...

Today, Sarah Boseley, the health editor of the Guardian, dedicated her Global Health Blog to the issue of maternal health and family planning. In her post, Boseley discusses the difficulty in combatting maternal mortality. But, she references the true "quick win" when it comes to saving women from dying of complications from pregnancy and childbirth: Family Planning. She says...