By Mustapha Salihu, Kano
Monday, 27 Sep 2010
The Federal Government has committed an initial appropriation of about N3bn for the Midwives Service Scheme which has been solely financed by it, but with technical support from the international development partners.
National Primary Health Care Development Agency zonal coordinator North West, Dr. Abdullahi Garba revealed this in an interview with pressmen at the end of a training workshop for 42 medical doctors in Kano under the scheme.
Garba who represented the Executive Secretary of NPHCDA, Dr. Muhammad Pate disclosed that the scheme funded by the FG through the Office of the Millennium Development Goals has delivered tremendous impact to justify the huge investment.
He revealed that over 800 midwives have been recruited so far under the MSS and deployed to 653 primary health centres across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
The zonal coordinator pointed out that all the 163 General Hospitals nationwide were provided with ICT facilities to link the Primary Health Centres stating that the primary objective of the scheme was to bring the services to the doorstep of the needy.
According to Garba, the public health sector has been greatly improved since the introduction of the MSS.He affirmed that the success of the scheme has drastically reduced the pressure on General and Specialist Hospitals, which are meant to be strictly research centres to handle complicated cases.
He said, “Before this scheme, the story was very bad. The maternal mortality index was high, and we lost a lot of mothers during childbirth. This ugly situation has changed since the introduction of the scheme.
“The Federal Government is very committed to this scheme. It believes the generation must continue and that if we allow this maternal mortality to increase, it will spell doom for the progress of the country. So, the FG is so committed to reversing the ugly trend”, he vowed.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Harper tells UN to focus on child, maternal health
CTV.ca News Staff
Date: Tue. Sep. 21 2010 10:04 PM ET
Prime Minister Stephen Harper called on delegates at a UN summit on global poverty to turn their attention to reducing child mortality and improving maternal health around the world.
In a short speech delivered at the UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday afternoon, Harper told delegates that "much remains to be done."
It has been 10 years since the formation of the UN Millennium Development Goals, which aim to reduce poverty around the world. Goals number four and five in the document address child and maternal health.
"It is a sad reality that each year, hundreds of thousands of mothers die in pregnancy, and nearly nine million children die before their fifth birthday," Harper said. "It does not have to be this way. Progress is possible, but only if we are all willing to take collective action."
During his speech, Harper hailed the adoption of the Muskoka Initiative for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health at last spring's G8 Summit north of Toronto. Harper said that the initiative aims to generate $10 billion over five years from world leaders, private foundations and other donors.
"When we speak of the Millennium Development goals, it will be critical that our words here today ultimately translate into simple realities, like food on the tables, improved health and a better life for children around the world," Harper said. "Together we must keep our promises and work towards practical, durable solutions."
Harper also announced that Canada will boost its contribution to the replenishment of the UN Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria for the years 2011 to 2013. The government's contribution will be about $540 million.
The prime minister is on the campaign trail at the United Nations this week to press Canada's bid for a seat on the powerful Security Council.
That Muskoka Initiative could prove the key to getting votes for Canada to assume one of the council's temporary seats, CTV Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife told Canada AM.
"We're running against Germany and Portugal, but countries feel we are confident because of what we're doing today," he said. "People are confident we're going to win this (but) it's not in the bag yet."
Harper is also to address the General Assembly on Friday. However, the prime minister's UN campaign will be interrupted by domestic politics.
Harper raced back to Ottawa immediately after Tuesday's speech in order to be in Parliament for Wednesday's gun registry vote.
Fife reported Tuesday night the vote on Tory MP Candice Hoeppner's private member's bill to kill the long-gun registry is expected to be close.
"If all MPs show up for the vote, party sources say the Conservative attempt to kill the long-gun registry will fail by a vote of 153 to 151," Fife said late Tuesday.
"A word of caution though. Opposition party sources say it's still possible that some MPs who opposed the gun registry and flip-flopped may get cold feet, they may get the flu and the Conservatives are hoping that some of those Liberal MPs from Newfoundland will stay home to help their constituents deal with the flooding from Igor."
No matter the vote's outcome, Harper will return to New York to deliver his first speech to the UN General Assembly in four years.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has said Canada's chances of winning the vote for a seat on the Security Council have been hurt by the prime minister ignoring the UN for most of his time in office.
It has been a decade since Canada held a seat on the Security Council.
The 192 UN ambassadors will vote on the seat on October 12 in a secret ballot.
Canadians boycott Ahmadinejad speech
Harper's speech came hours after Canadian diplomats at the UN boycotted a speech by the president of Iran.
Western diplomats, including those from Canada, have in recent years made a show of walking out on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whenever he addresses the UN General Assembly.
Catherine Loubier, spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, says the boycott was intended as a protest against Iran's human rights record and controversial nuclear program.
Ahmadinejad told the assembly that capitalism is facing defeat and is calling for an overhaul of the "undemocratic and unjust" global decision-making bodies.
He called on world leaders, thinkers and global reformers "to spare no effort" to make practical plans for a new world order.
He's proposing that the UN call the current decade the Decade for Joint Global Governance.
From http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/CanadaAM/20100921/harper-un-100921/
Date: Tue. Sep. 21 2010 10:04 PM ET
Prime Minister Stephen Harper called on delegates at a UN summit on global poverty to turn their attention to reducing child mortality and improving maternal health around the world.
In a short speech delivered at the UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday afternoon, Harper told delegates that "much remains to be done."
It has been 10 years since the formation of the UN Millennium Development Goals, which aim to reduce poverty around the world. Goals number four and five in the document address child and maternal health.
"It is a sad reality that each year, hundreds of thousands of mothers die in pregnancy, and nearly nine million children die before their fifth birthday," Harper said. "It does not have to be this way. Progress is possible, but only if we are all willing to take collective action."
During his speech, Harper hailed the adoption of the Muskoka Initiative for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health at last spring's G8 Summit north of Toronto. Harper said that the initiative aims to generate $10 billion over five years from world leaders, private foundations and other donors.
"When we speak of the Millennium Development goals, it will be critical that our words here today ultimately translate into simple realities, like food on the tables, improved health and a better life for children around the world," Harper said. "Together we must keep our promises and work towards practical, durable solutions."
Harper also announced that Canada will boost its contribution to the replenishment of the UN Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria for the years 2011 to 2013. The government's contribution will be about $540 million.
The prime minister is on the campaign trail at the United Nations this week to press Canada's bid for a seat on the powerful Security Council.
That Muskoka Initiative could prove the key to getting votes for Canada to assume one of the council's temporary seats, CTV Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife told Canada AM.
"We're running against Germany and Portugal, but countries feel we are confident because of what we're doing today," he said. "People are confident we're going to win this (but) it's not in the bag yet."
Harper is also to address the General Assembly on Friday. However, the prime minister's UN campaign will be interrupted by domestic politics.
Harper raced back to Ottawa immediately after Tuesday's speech in order to be in Parliament for Wednesday's gun registry vote.
Fife reported Tuesday night the vote on Tory MP Candice Hoeppner's private member's bill to kill the long-gun registry is expected to be close.
"If all MPs show up for the vote, party sources say the Conservative attempt to kill the long-gun registry will fail by a vote of 153 to 151," Fife said late Tuesday.
"A word of caution though. Opposition party sources say it's still possible that some MPs who opposed the gun registry and flip-flopped may get cold feet, they may get the flu and the Conservatives are hoping that some of those Liberal MPs from Newfoundland will stay home to help their constituents deal with the flooding from Igor."
No matter the vote's outcome, Harper will return to New York to deliver his first speech to the UN General Assembly in four years.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has said Canada's chances of winning the vote for a seat on the Security Council have been hurt by the prime minister ignoring the UN for most of his time in office.
It has been a decade since Canada held a seat on the Security Council.
The 192 UN ambassadors will vote on the seat on October 12 in a secret ballot.
Canadians boycott Ahmadinejad speech
Harper's speech came hours after Canadian diplomats at the UN boycotted a speech by the president of Iran.
Western diplomats, including those from Canada, have in recent years made a show of walking out on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whenever he addresses the UN General Assembly.
Catherine Loubier, spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, says the boycott was intended as a protest against Iran's human rights record and controversial nuclear program.
Ahmadinejad told the assembly that capitalism is facing defeat and is calling for an overhaul of the "undemocratic and unjust" global decision-making bodies.
He called on world leaders, thinkers and global reformers "to spare no effort" to make practical plans for a new world order.
He's proposing that the UN call the current decade the Decade for Joint Global Governance.
From http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/CanadaAM/20100921/harper-un-100921/
Friday, September 17, 2010
Coalition urges Nick Clegg to prioritise maternal health at next week's summit
Amnesty International UK, IPPF, Oxfam, Marie Stopes, Mumsnet, Save the Children, WaterAid, White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood
A coalition made up of Amnesty International, IPPF, Oxfam, Marie Stopes, Mumsnet, Save the Children, WaterAid, and the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood last night (Thursday 16) urged Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to ensure maternal health is made a top priority at next week’s United Nations Millennium Development Goal Review Summit (20 – 22 September).
Representatives including Kate Allen (Amnesty International UK Director), and Justine Roberts & Carrie Longton (Mumsnet Founders) and WaterAid’s Mary O'Connell presented a giant-sized card to the Deputy Prime Minister which sent a stark reminder that all pregnant women should be able to access their right to the highest standards of health care.
Nick Clegg received the ‘Every Day should be Mother’s Day’ card at Mumsnet’s headquarters in central London where he was doing a live webchat with the Mumsnet community.
The card comprised pictures from Amnesty activists who had sent in personal photographs of women with their children. The message in the card reminded the UK Government to uphold its global commitment to improve health care for pregnant women.
Every year more than 350,000 women die as a result of pregnancy or other childbirth-related factors. Tragically for 99 per cent of these women, their deaths could have been avoided. Yet poverty, inequality and discrimination have resulted in far too many women dying during their pregnancy.
Next week world leaders – including Nick Clegg – will meet in New York to discuss progress on anti-poverty goals – the Millennium Development Goals. Of the eight Goals the target to improve maternal health – which includes reducing the number of pregnancy-related deaths by 75 per cent and increasing access to sexual and reproductive services – is lagging the furthest behind.
Amnesty International’s UK Director, Kate Allen presented the card to Nick Clegg. She said:
“Ten years ago, the international community recognised that alarming rates of women were dying needlessly due to pregnancy or childbirth-related factors. Yet despite this, very little has improved for the world’s poorest women.
“As Nick Clegg heads off to the New York Summit, we hope this card reminds him that all pregnant women should have access to the best available health care, as a basic human right.”
Brigid McConville, UK Director of the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood said:
“We now have the opportunity of a lifetime to really change the life chances of women, babies and children. We congratulate the government on making maternal health a priority, we urge them to continue the leadership that has been shown by the UK in recent years – and make sure that there is now urgent action to make sure the promises of world leaders to end the needless deaths of women in childbirth are kept.”
Carrie Longton, Founder of Mumsnet said:
"It was great that both Nick Clegg and David Cameron committed to the Manifesto for Motherhood before the general election, and we're delighted that Nick Clegg has put maternal health at the top of his agenda this September. We really hope that his commitment results in a positive outcome for the many women around the world who will otherwise die needlessly this year, through birth and pregnancy-related complications."
Although most of the highest rates of maternal mortality are found in sub-Saharan Africa – with Afghanistan being the exception to this rule – challenges to pregnant women’s health are found in all continents of the world.
In the USA, Amnesty reported that African-American women are four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than white women, and these disparities have not improved for more than 20 years.
Meanwhile in Peru, women in rural areas are twice as likely as those in urban areas to die from causes related to pregnancy, and indigenous women are regularly discriminated against in health centres. They are often refused their request to give birth in the vertical position – an ancestral tradition amongst many indigenous women in Peru which is faster and easier for women. Because of language barriers with most health workers not able to speak local languages, indigenous women are more likely to be incorrectly diagnosed should any complications arise.
In Chad, only one per cent of the poorest women are attended by skilled health personnel during delivery, compared with 48 per cent of the wealthiest women.
Kate Allen added:
“World leaders must stop falling short on their promises. They should put into practice systems to ensure that discrimination, inequality and poverty no longer prevent hundreds of thousands of women from accessing their basic right to adequate health care. This must be done as a matter of urgency.
“The world’s poorest women cannot wait another five years. People are dying needlessly and the international community simply isn’t doing enough to prevent it.”
from http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=18994
A coalition made up of Amnesty International, IPPF, Oxfam, Marie Stopes, Mumsnet, Save the Children, WaterAid, and the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood last night (Thursday 16) urged Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to ensure maternal health is made a top priority at next week’s United Nations Millennium Development Goal Review Summit (20 – 22 September).
Representatives including Kate Allen (Amnesty International UK Director), and Justine Roberts & Carrie Longton (Mumsnet Founders) and WaterAid’s Mary O'Connell presented a giant-sized card to the Deputy Prime Minister which sent a stark reminder that all pregnant women should be able to access their right to the highest standards of health care.
Nick Clegg received the ‘Every Day should be Mother’s Day’ card at Mumsnet’s headquarters in central London where he was doing a live webchat with the Mumsnet community.
The card comprised pictures from Amnesty activists who had sent in personal photographs of women with their children. The message in the card reminded the UK Government to uphold its global commitment to improve health care for pregnant women.
Every year more than 350,000 women die as a result of pregnancy or other childbirth-related factors. Tragically for 99 per cent of these women, their deaths could have been avoided. Yet poverty, inequality and discrimination have resulted in far too many women dying during their pregnancy.
Next week world leaders – including Nick Clegg – will meet in New York to discuss progress on anti-poverty goals – the Millennium Development Goals. Of the eight Goals the target to improve maternal health – which includes reducing the number of pregnancy-related deaths by 75 per cent and increasing access to sexual and reproductive services – is lagging the furthest behind.
Amnesty International’s UK Director, Kate Allen presented the card to Nick Clegg. She said:
“Ten years ago, the international community recognised that alarming rates of women were dying needlessly due to pregnancy or childbirth-related factors. Yet despite this, very little has improved for the world’s poorest women.
“As Nick Clegg heads off to the New York Summit, we hope this card reminds him that all pregnant women should have access to the best available health care, as a basic human right.”
Brigid McConville, UK Director of the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood said:
“We now have the opportunity of a lifetime to really change the life chances of women, babies and children. We congratulate the government on making maternal health a priority, we urge them to continue the leadership that has been shown by the UK in recent years – and make sure that there is now urgent action to make sure the promises of world leaders to end the needless deaths of women in childbirth are kept.”
Carrie Longton, Founder of Mumsnet said:
"It was great that both Nick Clegg and David Cameron committed to the Manifesto for Motherhood before the general election, and we're delighted that Nick Clegg has put maternal health at the top of his agenda this September. We really hope that his commitment results in a positive outcome for the many women around the world who will otherwise die needlessly this year, through birth and pregnancy-related complications."
Although most of the highest rates of maternal mortality are found in sub-Saharan Africa – with Afghanistan being the exception to this rule – challenges to pregnant women’s health are found in all continents of the world.
In the USA, Amnesty reported that African-American women are four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than white women, and these disparities have not improved for more than 20 years.
Meanwhile in Peru, women in rural areas are twice as likely as those in urban areas to die from causes related to pregnancy, and indigenous women are regularly discriminated against in health centres. They are often refused their request to give birth in the vertical position – an ancestral tradition amongst many indigenous women in Peru which is faster and easier for women. Because of language barriers with most health workers not able to speak local languages, indigenous women are more likely to be incorrectly diagnosed should any complications arise.
In Chad, only one per cent of the poorest women are attended by skilled health personnel during delivery, compared with 48 per cent of the wealthiest women.
Kate Allen added:
“World leaders must stop falling short on their promises. They should put into practice systems to ensure that discrimination, inequality and poverty no longer prevent hundreds of thousands of women from accessing their basic right to adequate health care. This must be done as a matter of urgency.
“The world’s poorest women cannot wait another five years. People are dying needlessly and the international community simply isn’t doing enough to prevent it.”
from http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=18994
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Canada Rolls Out Maternal & Child Health Plans in Africa
Minister for International Cooperation, Bev Oda, visited Mali and Mozambique this week to implement pledges concerning maternal and child heath that were made at the G8 Summit.
In these last few days, there has been a flurry of international activity surrounding maternal and child health in Africa as conditions in Africa’s Sahelian belt and Angola threaten maternal and child welfare. Canada, not to be left behind, has likewise begun to implement its own initiatives.
At the Group of Eight (G8) Summit in Muskoka this past June, Canada pledged $1.1 billion dollars to improving maternal, newborn and child health in Africa. The Canadian contribution accounts for a large portion of the $5 billion plan developed by G8 countries, which aims to aims to save the lives of more than 1.3 million children and 64,000 mothers in the coming years.
Bev Oda, Canada’s Minister for International Cooperation (and head of the Canadian International Development Agency), has been busy visiting health officials in Mali and Mozambique over the past couple of weeks. While Canada will encourage family planning, its main goals are training “health workers, strengthening Mali’s comprehensive primary health systems at the local level, improving nutritional health and reducing the effects of diseases on mothers, newborns and children under five,” according to statements released by Oda’s office.
In many developing counties, 75% of women live in rural areas. Most of these women do not have access to contraception. There is often a lack of medical and psychosocial support for women with unwanted pregnancies. Without knowledge about best practices for safe pregnancies, women may not get the optimal nutrition and care they need for both themselves and their babies.
In Mali, less than 7% of women are using contraception and most women will have 6-7 children in their lifetime. Especially in the context of endemic food insecurity, multiple and closely-spaced pregnancies can be dangerous to both maternal and child health.
For women without adequate health care, income and nourishment, the risk of maternal death is greater than a woman who has only one or two children. According to a 2005 study by the World Health Organization (WHO), the leading causes of maternal death are haemorrhage, infection, eclampsia (hypertensive disorder associated with seizures) and complications of unsafe abortions.
Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of a child’s life is recommended by the WHO as being the best means of feeding infants. The organization further recommends that children be fed on a combination of breast milk and other appropriate foods until they are at least two. However, if a new baby arrives before these years are up, the eldest child may be prematurely weaned. That child is then put at a greater risk of malnutrition. The child usually switches to a diet composed mostly of staple grains, which can lead to him/her developing severe micronutrient and protein deficiencies causing edema (swelling of the belly). This condition is known as kwashiorkor.
In some African languages kwashiorkor means “the deposed child” – sadly, an appropriate name.
In these last few days, there has been a flurry of international activity surrounding maternal and child health in Africa as conditions in Africa’s Sahelian belt and Angola threaten maternal and child welfare. Canada, not to be left behind, has likewise begun to implement its own initiatives.
At the Group of Eight (G8) Summit in Muskoka this past June, Canada pledged $1.1 billion dollars to improving maternal, newborn and child health in Africa. The Canadian contribution accounts for a large portion of the $5 billion plan developed by G8 countries, which aims to aims to save the lives of more than 1.3 million children and 64,000 mothers in the coming years.
Bev Oda, Canada’s Minister for International Cooperation (and head of the Canadian International Development Agency), has been busy visiting health officials in Mali and Mozambique over the past couple of weeks. While Canada will encourage family planning, its main goals are training “health workers, strengthening Mali’s comprehensive primary health systems at the local level, improving nutritional health and reducing the effects of diseases on mothers, newborns and children under five,” according to statements released by Oda’s office.
In many developing counties, 75% of women live in rural areas. Most of these women do not have access to contraception. There is often a lack of medical and psychosocial support for women with unwanted pregnancies. Without knowledge about best practices for safe pregnancies, women may not get the optimal nutrition and care they need for both themselves and their babies.
In Mali, less than 7% of women are using contraception and most women will have 6-7 children in their lifetime. Especially in the context of endemic food insecurity, multiple and closely-spaced pregnancies can be dangerous to both maternal and child health.
For women without adequate health care, income and nourishment, the risk of maternal death is greater than a woman who has only one or two children. According to a 2005 study by the World Health Organization (WHO), the leading causes of maternal death are haemorrhage, infection, eclampsia (hypertensive disorder associated with seizures) and complications of unsafe abortions.
Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of a child’s life is recommended by the WHO as being the best means of feeding infants. The organization further recommends that children be fed on a combination of breast milk and other appropriate foods until they are at least two. However, if a new baby arrives before these years are up, the eldest child may be prematurely weaned. That child is then put at a greater risk of malnutrition. The child usually switches to a diet composed mostly of staple grains, which can lead to him/her developing severe micronutrient and protein deficiencies causing edema (swelling of the belly). This condition is known as kwashiorkor.
In some African languages kwashiorkor means “the deposed child” – sadly, an appropriate name.
The death of mothers is not just a women’s issue
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Published on Wednesday, Sep. 15, 2010 3:45PM EDT
A woman dies almost every minute in childbirth, mostly in the developing world, and if I were not fortunate enough to live in Canada, I might have been one of those statistics.
My first child was a breech birth, my second child too big for me to deliver. If my doctor had not performed cesarean sections, there is no telling what could have happened to me and my babies.
I carry that thought with me every day, because now that I am a mother, everything is heartbreakingly personal: Every dead child could have been mine and every dead mother could have been me.
While that sometimes leaves me emotionally drained after reading the newspaper or watching the news on television, the constant reminder of my luck in being born a Canadian with access to exceptional care is galvanizing. It keeps me focused on the mothers throughout the world who endure horrifying labours without skilled birthing attendants, crippling backroom abortions or c-sections without any access to pain control, or the ones who die and the shattered families they leave behind.
It also gives me cause to celebrate small achievements such as the incrementally declining maternal death rates, which are proof that advocacy and hard work can have an impact.
But there is still so much work to be done. On Monday, I will be in New York with my mother, Maureen McTeer, to attend the Women: Inspiration and Enterprise symposium hosted by the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, of which mom is the Canadian representative. Hosted by Sarah Brown, the alliance’s Global Patron and the wife of former British prime minister Gordon Brown, Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, and fashion designer Donna Karan, the symposium will highlight the issues of maternal/child health as world leaders gather to reaffirm their somewhat tepid commitment to United Nations Millennium Development Goal 5, which calls for universal access to reproductive health by 2015.
A conference like this, and any similar initiative, is useful if it helps to prevent even one of the estimated 536,000 deaths (2005) of women a year from pregnancy-related causes or keep one woman alive for the one million children who are left motherless.
One of the main obstacles we have to overcome in this birth-and-death struggle is the view that this is merely a women’s issue. It is not. It is a global issue and it affects every person. Do we all not have a responsibility to protect the legacies of our mothers and the futures of our sisters and daughters? My daughter is 4 and currently wants to be a cowgirl and an astronaut. Dying in childbirth is not something I ever intend for her to contemplate.
To be more hard-hearted about this, the financial impact of maternal deaths is as shocking as the loss of life.
About $15.5-billion in potential productivity vanishes each year when mothers and their newborns die, or are left with long-term injuries, after birth or botched abortions. Mothers also perform countless hours of unpaid work as caregivers, teachers, health-care practitioners and chief executives all rolled into one, so when the mother dies, the family engine stops running and the broader community must step in to care for those left behind.
It is a tragedy if a woman dies in childbirth in Canada. It is just a sad, normal event if it happens in the developing world. That continued acceptance of the deaths of women is what we must change. I urge you to make a difference – through a donation, through advocacy, through pressing our political leaders to support fully Millennium Development Goal 5. Because, to quote the UN Population Fund, “no woman should die giving life.”
Catherine Clark is a writer and host of the national political television show Beyond Politics on CPAC.
Published on Wednesday, Sep. 15, 2010 3:45PM EDT
A woman dies almost every minute in childbirth, mostly in the developing world, and if I were not fortunate enough to live in Canada, I might have been one of those statistics.
My first child was a breech birth, my second child too big for me to deliver. If my doctor had not performed cesarean sections, there is no telling what could have happened to me and my babies.
I carry that thought with me every day, because now that I am a mother, everything is heartbreakingly personal: Every dead child could have been mine and every dead mother could have been me.
While that sometimes leaves me emotionally drained after reading the newspaper or watching the news on television, the constant reminder of my luck in being born a Canadian with access to exceptional care is galvanizing. It keeps me focused on the mothers throughout the world who endure horrifying labours without skilled birthing attendants, crippling backroom abortions or c-sections without any access to pain control, or the ones who die and the shattered families they leave behind.
It also gives me cause to celebrate small achievements such as the incrementally declining maternal death rates, which are proof that advocacy and hard work can have an impact.
But there is still so much work to be done. On Monday, I will be in New York with my mother, Maureen McTeer, to attend the Women: Inspiration and Enterprise symposium hosted by the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, of which mom is the Canadian representative. Hosted by Sarah Brown, the alliance’s Global Patron and the wife of former British prime minister Gordon Brown, Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, and fashion designer Donna Karan, the symposium will highlight the issues of maternal/child health as world leaders gather to reaffirm their somewhat tepid commitment to United Nations Millennium Development Goal 5, which calls for universal access to reproductive health by 2015.
A conference like this, and any similar initiative, is useful if it helps to prevent even one of the estimated 536,000 deaths (2005) of women a year from pregnancy-related causes or keep one woman alive for the one million children who are left motherless.
One of the main obstacles we have to overcome in this birth-and-death struggle is the view that this is merely a women’s issue. It is not. It is a global issue and it affects every person. Do we all not have a responsibility to protect the legacies of our mothers and the futures of our sisters and daughters? My daughter is 4 and currently wants to be a cowgirl and an astronaut. Dying in childbirth is not something I ever intend for her to contemplate.
To be more hard-hearted about this, the financial impact of maternal deaths is as shocking as the loss of life.
About $15.5-billion in potential productivity vanishes each year when mothers and their newborns die, or are left with long-term injuries, after birth or botched abortions. Mothers also perform countless hours of unpaid work as caregivers, teachers, health-care practitioners and chief executives all rolled into one, so when the mother dies, the family engine stops running and the broader community must step in to care for those left behind.
It is a tragedy if a woman dies in childbirth in Canada. It is just a sad, normal event if it happens in the developing world. That continued acceptance of the deaths of women is what we must change. I urge you to make a difference – through a donation, through advocacy, through pressing our political leaders to support fully Millennium Development Goal 5. Because, to quote the UN Population Fund, “no woman should die giving life.”
Catherine Clark is a writer and host of the national political television show Beyond Politics on CPAC.
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