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We’ll continue updating our content and discussing all things related to maternal health at the new site. Please come visit!

Professor Jeremy Shiffman, a political scientist at Syracuse University who has a particular interest in maternal, newborn, and child health, has been developing a new field of enquiry to analyze the critical factors underlying successful political advocacy for global health causes. His case study on political priority for reducing maternal mortality was presented at the 2007 Women Deliver Conference and he is currently researching global advocacy for newborn health.

Professor Shiffman gave a seminar to share his findings before a packed audience of global health practitioners at WHO Headquarters on 5 September 2008. Click here to read the Q&A.

If you’re a US resident, get out and vote!

The BBC has produced a new multi-series documentary called “Survival” that includes a 45-minute look at maternal health in Bangladesh. To capture the true story, the filmmakers traveled to a remote area in the North East of Bangladesh and filmed the labor of a young woman, Morjina, in her small hut with the aid of traditional birth attendant, or dhai.

Bangladesh is one of the most dangerous places in the world to have a baby, and over 90% of women will give birth at home, most without the help of trained medical staff. The dhais are the only birth attendant choice for most women, and the only tools these dhais use are a razor blade and a piece of string to tie the umbilical cord with. They don’t have the skills to treat many complications, such as hemorrhage or obstructed labor. Click here to watch the full-length video, or watch the shorter briefing video.

Last week Bono spoke at the California Women’s Conference, and he passed along some of these stats about women in Africa:

-Nearly two-thirds of adults with HIV in Africa are women. Young women (age 15 to 24) in South Africa accounted for around 90% of new HIV infections in 2007.

-In Africa, the likelihood of a woman dying in childbirth is 1 in 20 (compared to 1 in 2,800 in the US).

-Although up to 80% of farmers in the developing world are women, they own less than 15% of land worldwide.

ONE, Bono’s anti-poverty organization, has just published a new fact sheet about investing in women. Click here to read it.

Photo via.

More than 75 religious leaders and representatives of Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jewish, Christian and Muslim faith-based organizations formed a global interfaith network to strengthen cooperation against the global issues of maternal death, AIDS, and poverty. 

“We have learned that while we come from different faiths, different regions and different experiences,” said Thoraya Obaid, executive director of UNFPA. “We share the common values of compassion, tolerance, respect for differences, and a passion to try to improve the lives of the people we serve.”

For more information, click here.

As many of you know, Dr. Allan Rosenfield passed away last week. As the former dean of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and a pioneer in the field of maternal health, family planning, and HIV/AIDS, his death is being mourned by those who knew him and knew his work. 

 

Allan Rosenfield cared deeply and passionately about equity and equality for women, starting with their basic reproductive choices and proceeding through their medical care. He was uniquely able to look at the issues from different perspectives: as a clinician, providing individualized, compassionate care; as a public health professional, pushing for the systemic changes needed to help the millions of women at risk of unwanted or unsafe pregnancy; and as an advocate, speaking with conviction, clarity, and authority. His contributions were invaluable in raising awareness of maternal mortality as a global health problem, and promoting effective strategies to address it. For Allan, the professional was personal, in the most positive sense: his commitment to the cause inspired hundreds, shamed others, and profoundly changed the world.

- Ann Starrs, President of Family Care International
- Jill Sheffield, President Emeritus and Senior Advisor to FCI

 

To read more tributes to Dr. Allan Rosenfield, check out the RH Reality Check blog, the Global Heath Progress blog, and the Columbia blog.

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 significant victories over poverty and oppression. Their stories are personal yet illustrate larger issues affecting millions of marginalized women worldwide. A Powerful Noise is a meditation on the inherent potential of women to change the world.

The film was made in cooperation with CARE and ONE. There are a few more screenings before the end of the year in Miami, California, St. Louis, Anchorage, and more. To see the full schedule, click here. Check out the trailer below.

Launched by UNIFEM in November 2007, the Say NO campaign hopes to demonstrate that ending violence against women has broad-based support from all parts of society. To date, more than 300,000 individuals worldwide have signed on (including Nicole Kidman), as well as more than 40 governments and over 190 civil society organizations. The campaign aims to collect 1 million signatures by November 25, 2008, when all signatures will be ceremonially delivered to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in support of his UNite to End Violence against Women multi-year effort. That means you’ve got one month left! Click here to sign on at the Say No website, and then forward it to your friends!

One year ago, on October 18-20, nearly 2,000 participants from 115 countries came together to call for increased political will and investment in maternal health. We all agreed: Invest in women – it pays! Activists, global health organizations, governments, and non-governmental groups gathered at this international conference in London to demand action to save the lives of women and newborns.  

A year later, we have seen a dramatic growth in visibility and attention for maternal and newborn health in the global arena. There is new energy, commitments, and networks – and new money; maternal health is being highlighted as the “lost” Millennium Development Goal, with urgent calls for action and new promises coming from the United Nations, donors, and many civil society groups; and maternal mortality is being widely recognized as an unacceptable economic loss and an intolerable injustice. We still have a long way to go if we’re going to reach MDG 5 by 2015; but for the first time, the MDG 5 targets of reducing maternal mortality by 75% and achieving universal access to reproductive health for all are within reach – if the commitment can be sustained and if the necessary resources can be mobilized and invested in programs on the ground.

What has changed in the past 12 months?  Read some highlights of what the maternal health community writ large has achieved, and then tell us what you have done to mobilize commitment and action for maternal health.

-         On September 25, 2008 a landmark event took place in New York, co-hosted by the presidents of Chile, Tanzania, and Finland. Commitment to Progress for Mothers, Newborns, and Children highlighted important commitments for maternal, newborn, and child health from governments, UN agencies, prominent individuals, private sector groups, and non-governmental organizations.

-         On the same day, at the High-Level Meeting at the UN to discuss the MDGs, the President of the World Bank and the Prime Minister of the UK announced a new task force to develop innovative financing mechanisms to strengthen health care systems, with a specific focus on saving the lives of 10 million women and children by 2015.

-         The International Initiative on Maternal Mortality and Human Rights, a global partnership launched at the Women Deliver conference, is now up and running, supporting on-the-ground work in countries and advocating globally to highlight women’s right to safe pregnancy and childbirth.

-         The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood launched their global campaign, A Promise to Mothers Lost, to increase political will and investment in maternal health. Sarah Brown, wife of the UK prime minister and patron of the Alliance, has mobilized political leaders, celebrities, and the media to join efforts to advance maternal health.

-         The maternal mortality issue reached celeb status. In September, Sarah Brown, Wendi Murdoch and Queen Rania of Jordan hosted an exclusive dinner in New York to discuss why improving maternal mortality is such an important goal of the UN and the global community. Women in attendance included: Christiane Amanpour, Whoopi Goldberg, Donna Karan, Elle Macpherson, Mary Robinson, Martha Stewart, and other leaders from fashion, the media, and the entertainment industry.

-         New and strengthened advocacy and program initiatives dedicated to maternal and child health have emerged: Women and Children First in the UK, World Vision International, and CARE International have all announced new commitments to generate resources and provide essential services to mothers, newborns and children.

-         In July 2008, the heads of state of the Group of Eight (G-8) major industrialized countries focused on maternal health for the first time. The final G-8 communiqué admitted that progress toward achieving MDGs 4 and 5 is seriously off track and acknowledged that the continuum of prevention and care should include a greater focus on maternal, newborn, and child health.

-         UNFPA established a new thematic fund for maternal health to boost global efforts to reduce the number of women dying in pregnancy and childbirth. The fund encourages developed countries and private sponsors to contribute more to saving women’s lives. Focused on supporting 75 countries with the greatest need, the goal is to raise $465 million during 2008-2011.

-         There is a clear and strong consensus around the core strategic pillars for saving women’s lives: 1) family planning and other reproductive health services; 2) skilled care during pregnancy and childbirth; 3) emergency obstetric care for life-threatening complications; and 4) postnatal care for mothers and newborns. These core strategies are being widely referenced in speeches, publications, advocacy materials, and media outputs.

-         We’ve seen progress at the country level as well:

• the Government of Cambodia placed reproductive, maternal, child and newborn health as the top priority in their new health sector plan for 2008 – 2015 and made a firm commitment to enhance skills and numbers of midwives;
• in Ethiopia, the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education are promoting a Masters programme and training of mid-level health officers so that they can provide life-saving emergency surgery at rural hospitals. Ethiopia also signed the first country compact under the International Health Partnership, aimed at accelerating and harmonizing efforts to achieve MDG 4, 5 and 6;
• Ghana announced that pregnant women who attend public hospitals will now receive free medical care; and
• a new regional campaign to reduce maternal and child mortality in Latin America and the Caribbean was launched in Chile in September.