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Uganda Moves Closer to Using Misoprostol to Curb Postpartum Hemorrhage
In low- and middle-income countries women continue to die each day during and immediately after childbirth mainly due to postpartum hemorrhaging (PPH). In fact, most maternal deaths in sub-Saharan Africa (440 every day) are caused by PPH. The World Health Organization’s strong recommendation to save mothers who experience PPH is to administer oxytocin, the most effective drug to stop…
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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 7 Favorite #NGO Vine Videos of the Year
There were really powerful and poignant Vine videos that were published by NGOs, foundations, and nonprofits this year. Even though adding Vine into their social media repertoire hasn’t hit a tipping point within the nonprofit community yet, we still believe Vine is an effective medium to convey short, but impactful messages. Here are our seven favorite Vine…
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Our Top 10 Most Read Posts of 2014
Over the course of this year we have shared a great deal of global health news and information, reports from the field in Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Tanzania, and the Phillipines, and have broken down some of the most pressing global health documents. That said, some of our posts received many more reads than others. Here is…
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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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How Heifer International Creates a Movement of Change for Families
This holiday season gifting animals to families in need in low-income countries can mean the difference between them living in abject poverty or being self-sufficient. I interviewed Cindy Jones-Nyland, Chief Marketing Officer of Heifer International about how they work with families around the world and transforms their lives. When people buy animals as gifts for…
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Sex Trafficking of Girls Is an Underground American Problem
Last week I saw someone in my Twitter feed mention the new movie, The Long Night, that was recently featured on the New York Times. The Long Night is an online film by Tim Matsui and Media Storm and funded by the Alexia Foundation about girls who are sex trafficked in and around Seattle. I immediately watched the…
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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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5 Maternal Health Organizations to Support Now
Every day 800 women die due to largely preventable causes during childbirth. That number is mentioned everywhere maternal health is mentioned and championed, but it always bears repeating. Until the drastic maternal mortality numbers decline the data must remain front and center. Mothers’ lives depend on us knowing the facts. Over the past few decades maternal…
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How Mother’s Loving Support Encourages Breastfeeding in Zambia
Mother’s Loving Support is a non-profit volunteer organisation borne out of the founder’s desire to encourage and support women as they breast feed their babies while continuing to work outside the home. In Zambia, breastfeeding a child is a socially accepted and encouraged step with the coming of a child, but many women in urban…
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One Mother’s Story Of Giving Birth in a Hospital Instead of At Home
Merida, Philippines – I met Jocelyn Pingos, 27, in Merida, Leyte on a bright, sunny tropical day in the Philippines. A mother of four, Jocelyn sat outside her local health center and waited patiently to have her youngest, Lenith, 10 months, looked at because of a nagging cough. Her second youngest, Jelenia, 3, was also with her. Jocelyn’s…
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How Women Are Rebuilding After Typhoon Haiyan: Elsa Morales
“We are very lucky the storm surge didn’t really touch my town,”said Manuel Boy’ Sia Que, the mayor of Dulag municipality. “We only had one-half to one meter storm surge.” In Ormoc, a city about an hour and a half from Tacloban, one of the hardest hit cities during Typhoon Haiyan is also like another…
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How PSI Reinforces Positive Reproductive Health Messaging Through Branding, Edutainment
In Tanzania, orange has increasingly become the recognized color of family planning and reproductive health services. Population Services International’s orange Familia brand is quite common in most regions of this coastal country of 49 million. PSI, a global non-profit organization dedicated to improving the health of people in the developing world, has consistently and effectively…
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A Day in the Life of a Family Planning Health Worker
Salasala, Tanzania — It took over an hour in notoriously congested Dar es Salaam traffic and gingerly moving through winding, narrow, dirt roads to visit Blandina Mpacha. Mama Blandina, as her community affectionately calls her, is a PSI health worker who teaches women, men, and whole families about the importance of family planning. This isn’t…
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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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Why Getting Women to Deliver in Health Facilities May Be Harder Than We Think
Every day 800 women die from preventable causes during pregnancy and childbirth. That is 292,000 women too many each year. One of the ways in which this statistic can be reduced is by simply encouraging women in low- and middle-income countries to deliver in health facilities with skilled health workers. That sounds simple enough, but…
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Human Rights Watch Explores the Lives of Indian Women Who Clean Human Waste
Lalibai stands by the entrance to the village cremation grounds. Before she took action, villagers had forbidden members of her community to cremate their dead here. © 2014 Digvijay Singh Can you imagine getting up every morning to clean human waste from dry toilets (those without running water or that are not attached to a…
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Introducing Our Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health Correspondents
As our work continues to expand globally especially as the MDG deadline nears in 2015 we want to ensure that international voices are the cornerstone of our coverage of maternal, newborn, and child health worldwide. We are beginning with three correspondents: Winfred Ogdom, a nutritionist from Uganda, Maryanne W. Waweru a motherhood blogger and journalist from Nairobi, Kenya,…
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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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Photo of the Week: Frontline Health Workers Count #Zambia
I walked quickly beside Dismus Mwalukwanda on a sandy path bordered by overgrown shrubbery leading through the bush to rural homes outside of Lusaka, Zambia’s capital. Mwalukwanda, 43, is a frontline health worker for the Njovo Village and took me to visit a family whose young children he has treated often for malaria. Mwalukwand is…