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Monday, September 14, 2009

When Planning a Pregnancy Can Save a Woman's Life

EngenderHealth's president, Dr. Ana Langer, authored an op-ed in the Huffington Post today:

"A new UNICEF report released last week is the latest in a series of drumbeats for a concerted, large-scale campaign to save the lives of mothers and newborns worldwide, far too many of whom are dying today from entirely preventable causes. With Congress back in session, a first order of business should be to approve a spending increase for maternal health and family planning in the FY10 Foreign Operations Bill.

"At stake are the more than half a million of expectant and new mothers who die each year, 99% of them in developing countries where maternal care is scarce. That's more than one woman every minute. Yet the number of maternal deaths has remained virtually unchanged for the past two decades. This is unconscionable, and it's why the Group of Eight leaders recently agreed that the world must do more to ensure that mothers everywhere can deliver their babies safely. Here in the U.S., we can do our part by doing more to fund life-saving efforts.

"When most of us think of childbirth, it triggers an image of a mother in a comfortable delivery room, holding the baby she'd dreamed of. Birth is a triumph, in part because pregnancy is never without some degree of risk. But in countries where women have a 1 in 8 lifetime chance of dying from pregnancy or giving birth, it can be tantamount to Russian roulette."

Read the rest of the column at the Huffington Post.

1 comment:

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