A Powerful Noise

I just watched the trailer for this moving documentary, A Powerful Noise. The film profiles three different women: Hanh, an HIV-positive widow in Vietnam; Nada, a survivor of the Bosnian war; and Jacqueline, who works the slums of Bamako, Mali. 
[The film] takes you inside the lives of these women to witness their daily challenges and their [...]

Campaign to End Fistula

The Campaign to End Fistula, led by UNFPA, has just announced that they’ll quadruple in size and work in 45 countries (up from 12). There are at least 2 million women in Africa, Asia and the Arab region living with obstetric fistula and 50,000 to 100,000 new cases developing each year. While obstetric fistula is [...]

Spotlight on Sierra Leone

There was a great feature in the Washington Post this weekend all about maternal mortality in Sierra Leone. Unfortunately, Sierra Leone has an extremely high maternal mortality rate — 1 in 8 women die during childbirth. The Post’s feature includes articles on women dying during childbirth, stillborn births, and multimedia photo galleries and a video from the [...]

Why is Africa Plagued with Maternal Mortality?

There’s a great blog post on RH Reality Check today about maternal mortality in Africa: On Maternal Mortality, Why Africa Falls So Far Behind. In the post, Edna Adan Ismail lists some of the reasons why African women die in pregnancy and childbirth: nutrition, education, high fertility, female genital mutilation, improper care at delivery and inadequate [...]

Kangaroo Mother Care

Check out this video about the success of Kangaroo Mother Care in Malawi. This process helps newborn babies with low birth weight gain weight through constant skin-to-skin contact with the mother and access to breastfeeding. It also means that whatever is needed for the medical, emotional, psychological and physical well being of mother and baby is [...]

Op-Ed from Thoraya Obaid

The director of UNFPA says:
Everyday, over 1,400 women and adolescent girls die needlessly from giving birth and 40,000 more suffer injuries and disabilities that can last a lifetime. Complications of pregnancy are the leading cause of death for young women aged 15 to 19 in the developing world.
This is deplorable. It is [...]

Report Card on Maternal Mortality

A new report on maternal mortality, released by UNICEF, highlights the risks faced during pregnancy and childbirth by women in developing countries.
The report, Progress for Children: A Report Card on Maternal Mortality states that, according to the latest data, more than 99 per cent of all maternal deaths occur in developing countries, [...]

Misoprostol Approved in Uganda

The Uganda government approved the use of the low-cost drug, misoprostol, to treat and prevent excessive bleeding in mothers during childbirth to curb the high maternal mortality rates.
Dr. Stephen Mallinga, the health minister, explained that the government had previously delayed licensing the drug, which can also be used to induce labour, because of fears of [...]

Beyond HIV: Many STIs Can Kill Pregnant Women

Masimba Biriwasha wrote a blog post on RH Reality Check today about the need to screen pregnant women for other STIs than HIV. She references a new study that was conducted in Cameroon on gynaecological morbidity–defined as “any condition, disease or dysfunction of the reproductive system that is not related to pregnancy, abortion or childbirth [...]

A Global Fund for Africa

Check out this article: Africa Seeks a Global Fund to Fight Maternal Deaths.