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Humanitarian Designs Innovative Diaper for Developing Countries
Michael Wahl didn’t purposely set out to create an innovative cloth diaper for babies who live in the developing world as well as a humanitarian organization, Dri Butts, that distributes diapers to families in need. Rather, he saw it as a necessity to prevent diseases caused by the spread of fecal matter. Many children in low-and middle-income…
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48 Corporations Step Up to Curb Newborn Deaths
A new, first-of-its-kind report, The Ultimate Investment in the Future Profiles of Corporate Engagement in the Health and Development of Newborns [PDF] was recently released that catalogs 48 corporations and their financial commitments to saving the lives of more newborns globally. Currently there are 2.6 million stillbirths every year and 2.8 million newborns do not…
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Reporting From Haiti This Week
This week I am traveling around Haiti reporting on global health issues that affect women and children. In fact, I am writing this post in the back of a SUV with my fixer and translator headed south of Port-au-Prince to visit Social Good Moms’ partner, Midwives for Haiti. In the poorest country in the Western…
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Kicking Off World Health Worker Week Through Photos and Stories #WHWWeek
To kick off World Health Worker Week (April 5 – 11) we are sharing photos and stories of some of the health workers we’ve met around the world over the years who work tirelessly to keep women, children, and families healthy and most importantly alive. In the sub-Saharan and Asian countries where we have met these health workers,…
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Bill and Melinda Gates’ 15-Year Bet For a Better World
Each January Bill and Melinda Gates release their Annual Letter. This year they are taking a bet on the world’s future. 15 years ago the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was started and there have been substantial improvements in global health and development since then because of its dedication to the world’s poorest people. Now,…
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New Global Projects Measure Newborn Health Interventions #EveryNewborn
Eight million children under the age of five die every year from preventable diseases. Of those eight million deaths, 2.8 million are neonates according to the World Health Organization. Key interventions like Kangaroo Mother Care, pre-and postnatal care, deliveries in a hospital setting with trained health workers, and exclusive breastfeeding are some proven ways to keep more babies alive.…
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5 of Our Partners Who Continue to Work in Haiti #Haiti5Years
In an earlier piece today, How is Haiti Faring Five Years After the Earthquake, development and recovery effort data and details were rather pessimistic. The numbers bear out that while some overall development achievements have been met, there is still a long way to go to help Haiti fully recover. And, yet, there continues to…
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5 Global Health Stories We’re Following This Year
2015 will be an interesting year in global health primarily because this is the year when the Millennium Development Goals should ideally be reached. Global health experts admit that many of the goals, for example MDG5, will not be reached globally even though some of them have already been reached on a country level. Ethiopia effectively reached MDG4…
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Our 12 Biggest Highlights of 2014
2014 was a very good year! We partnered with leading NGOs and nonprofits to advance causes that mean the difference between life and death and quality living for the world’s poorest citizens. We traveled around the world to report on water and sanitation, newborns, maternal health, disaster relief, and health workers. We traveled domestically to report…
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Our Top 10 Recommended NGO Videos of 2014
Effective video making is a powerful form of storytelling. Videos, when done well, get to the heart of the matter quickly and leave people wanting to know more, do more, and donate more. These videos encompass all of those things and also made us want to delve more into not only their messages, but also…
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Why This 21-Year-Old Filipino Mother Dropped Out of School in 6th Grade
I met Jasmine and her son, Kent John, 7-months-old, on a sunny day at a free health clinic in Ormoc, a busy port city on Leyte island in the Philippines. At just 21-year-old Jasmine came to the clinic because Kent John had been experiencing a cough and fever for two weeks. Luckily located very close to the…
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7 Facts About Premature Births You Might Not Have Known
Photo: A premature baby is shown in the postnatal ward at Cama Hospital, a major hospital for women and children, in Mumbai, India. UN Photo/Mark Garten Premature births are now the number one killer of babies globally. Of the 6.3 million children under five who died last year, 1.1 million of them died due to complications from premature…
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India Launches Massive Scale-Up of Pentavalent Vaccine
This month begins a massive scale-up of Pentavalent vaccine for India’s children. With the largest rate of child mortality in the world, this new, national immunization effort will help reduce the number of child deaths in India. The Pentavalent vaccine combines diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) with hepatitis B (hepB) and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib). Haemophilus influenzae type b kills 72,000 Indian children…
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Turkana Children in Kenya Continue to Suffer Malnutrition Amid Poor Health Services
Last week, I travelled from the capital city of Nairobi, Kenya, to Turkana County which is in the northern part of the country. Turkana is a largely pastoralist community with a population of 855,000 people. The county faces major problems, chief among them recurring droughts which has for years crippled the county’s economic development. The…
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Why Secondary Education for Girls Reduces Child Marriage, Early Pregnancies
UNESCO just released its report, Sustainable Development: Post 2015 Begins With Education, that takes a look at the critical importance of education on the post-2015 agenda. The core stance in the report portends that without greater access to education poverty eradication will become increasingly difficult to achieve by 2030. The betterment of women’s and girls’ lives…
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New Report on Child Mortality Trends Released
Today a collaborative report on trends in child mortality was released by the World Bank, UNICEF, the United Nations and the World Health Organization. According to the Levels and Trends in Child Mortality report, child mortality has dropped by 49 percent since 1990. Even so, Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG 4) has yet to be reached.…
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Sharing Moms’ Stories for #WorldBreastfeeding Week: Ebony #WBW2014
Today marks the end of World Breastfeeding Week, but we still have more breastfeeding stories to share after today. We believe that moms help fellow moms through personal stories. That’s why we will continue to share the breastfeeding experiences of new and experienced moms alike. No one wants to feel alone at 2 AM in…
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Sharing Moms’ Stories for #WorldBreastfeeding Week: Hope #WBW2014
One of the biggest concerns of breastfeeding mothers is whether or not they are producing enough breast milk for their babies. It’s a valid concern. Having a low milk supply can become an overwhelming frustration for mothers. Some turn to formula and others like Hope turn to pumping. When Hope didn’t think she was producing…
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Exclusive Breastfeeding Rates in Kenya Still Low
By Maryanne W. Waweru, Kenyan motherhood blogger and maternal/child health journalist based in Nairobi. As Kenya joins the rest of the world in marking the World Breastfeeding Week, health experts in the country are calling on more stringent efforts to be put in place that will encourage more women to exclusively breastfeed their babies. Though…
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Sharing Moms’ Stories for World Breastfeeding Week: Lauren #WBW2014
Lauren, who writes at the Milky Way, shares a beautiful story about loving her son and nursing him to feel a closer mother and son bond. Lauren is open and completely honest about new motherhood. We love Lauren’s breastfeeding story for its raw emotion that many fellow mothers will connect with. Read Lauren’s story, Why I Chose…