Saving Mothers

Hundreds of thousands of women die each year from pregnancy-related complications. The vast majority of these deaths are unnecessary and preventable, caused by a lack of access to timely, quality health care. These preventable deaths represent violations of essential human rights, including the right to the highest attainable standard of health and the right to freedom from discrimination based on such factors as gender, race, ethnicity, immigration status, Indigenous status or income level.

Two years ago, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution affirming its “commitment to promoting maternal health and child survival both at home and abroad through greater international investment and participation.” Now a new bill — the “Global MOMS Act” — is giving Congress the opportunity to match that commitment with action. In some countries, it truly could mean the difference between life and death for a woman.

Click here to tell your Congressperson to help save lives and protect human rights around the world by supporting the Global MOMS Act.

The United States is not a great place to be a mother, according to this year’s annual State of the World’s Mothers report put out by nonprofit Save the Children. We came in 28th place out 160 ranked countries, far below leaders Norway and Australia, and behind almost all of Western Europe, according to the New York Times.

The top reason for America’s low placement: consistently high maternal mortality rates despite technological advances and a relatively high quality of health care nationwide. The country was also dinged due to poor maternity leave provisions and benefit packages.

The lowest ranking countries on the list are concentrated in Africa and the Middle East, where medical and even traditional birth attendant training is poor. Afghanistan came in last place.

Save the Children bases its ranking, called the Mother’s Index, on several factors: womne’s health care, nutrition, education and political engagement.

Here’s an executive summary of the report (download PDF).

Saving Mothers participated in a conference call with ONE President David Lane and Christy Turlington Burns. More than 2000 people joined this conference call, which focused on women’s issues and empowerment. One of the major topics of conversation was maternal health issues in Africa and other developing countries. Below are some highlights of the call and our take on it.

Christy is a model and business woman as well as an active advocate for maternal and child health, lung cancer and AIDS. After experiencing complications when her first child was born, she became passionate about raising awareness on maternal health care.

She mentioned how maternal mortality is the #1 cause of death for women in some countries in the developing world. In some cases, women do not die but suffer from conditions such as obstetric fistula, which causes the woman to be incontinent and, thus, shunned from her community. (To see how Saving Mothers has worked to help women with obstetric fistula, see “Saving Mothers’ Team Performs Obstetric Fistula Repairs”)

Christy worked on the documentary film “No Woman No Cry” to let people to experience what it is like to walk in the shoes of women that may have no access to maternal care and see the adversity that they face. Fore more information on the film go to http://www.everymothercounts.org/film

Below are some suggestions of how to help this fight

1. Become familiar with the facts and statistics about maternal health issues:http://www.savingmothers.org/issue.html

2. Help raise awareness and fundraise for organizations that work to promote maternal health

3. Visit http://www.everymothercounts.org/ and watch No Woman No Cry.

4. Take action to tell Senate that the proposed cuts in the U.S. Budget to proven, effective poverty-fighting solutions are unacceptable.: http://www.one.org/us/actnow/

According to a new report published by Amnesty International USA, maternal mortality in America actually increased between 1987 and 2006, from 6.6 deaths per 100,000 live births to 13.3 deaths. And this has happened despite the country spending more than any other on health care and maternal medicine.

Sadly, the data breaks down along racial lines too, with African-American women being four times more likely to die due to pregnancy or childbirth than their Caucasian peers. These numbers have stayed flat for two decades.

The number of actual deaths doesn’t reflect the 68,000 women that almost die in childbirth in the U.S. every year. According to Amnesty, an estimated 1.7 million women a year experience some complication during delivery that significantly harms their health.

You can download the whole report, titled “Maternal Health in the U.S.” here. Theorganization also provides a link to write to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius about how important this issue is and why she and the Obama administration should take action.