-
Ugandan Nutritionist Offers Breastfeeding Advice
Very soon we will welcome Winfred Ongom Jaan, a Ugandan nutritionist, as an expert for mothers, children, and newborns right here on SocialGoodMoms.com. She will serve as a correspondent from her home country to report on maternal, newborn, and child health programs, progress, and issues unique to Uganda. Today, during World Breastfeeding Week, Winfred offered…
-
Why Congress Needs to Pass the Maternal Health Accountability Act of 2014
The United States has a maternal mortality problem. For the past 25 years the rate of maternal mortality has increased dramatically in America. In fact, the United States is one of eight countries including Greece, Afghanistan and sub-Saharan African countries where the number of mothers who die during childbirth is on the rise. Now each…
-
Save the Date: Our Twitter Chat About #ChildHealth #MDG4 on August 18
August 18, 2014 marks 500 days to reach the Millennium Development Goals, the set of goals signed into action in September 2000 to reduce extreme poverty in a variety of topic areas from eradicating poverty to ensuring environmental sustainability. MDG 4, or reduce child mortality, laid out a concrete goal to reduce child mortality by…
-
Photos from the Field: Expectant Mother Seeks Help in “Lie and Wait” House #Ethiopia
Expectant woman, Ayelech Fikadu, and her mother, Zarge Badunga sit in a “lie and wait” house at Project Mercy outside of Butajira, Ethiopia. The house was recently renovated by USAID and Pathfinder. Butajira is located in Ethiopia’s southern highlands where many live in the mountains. Women who live in the mountains have a difficult time…
-
Photo From the Field: Nine-Day-Old Newborn
This woman in Mosebo village, 43 kilometers from Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, holds her nine-day-old baby and quickly quiets him by breastfeeding him in her home. Save the Children is working diligently with the Ethiopian Federal Government to properly train health extension workers and provide continuing education for the workers to help save the lives of vulnerable newborns.…
-
Photos from the Field: Child Marriage
This is a young, expectant mother who lives near Butajira, Ethiopia. She was married at 13 and will deliver her first child at 15. She walked to this “lie and wait” house (pictured above) because of excessive bleeding. She lives 30 minutes up in the mountains of southern Ethiopia from the “lie and wait” house. She…
-
Making the Voices of 10,000 Women Matter for Preventing Disease
By Nalini Saligram, CEO of Arogya World. I am the mother of two beautiful young women, and what I want more than anything else is to help them put their best foot forward in life. My wish for them—and I know all mothers everywhere have similar wishes for their children—is that they live up to…
-
Inside Sierra Leone’s Maternal and Newborn Mortality Rates
With an overall population of 5.9 million people in Sierra Leone, 200 women will die today from complications during childbirth. Every year, 2400 women lose their lives due to pregnancy related causes in Sierra Leone. And, close to 10,000 babies die every year during their first month of life. There has been notable progress in…
-
Every Newborn Action Plan Launches in Johannesburg
Johannesburg – After over a year of work, the Every Newborn Action Plan (ENAP) was officially launched on Monday, June 30 in Johannesburg during the third Partners’ Forum. In May, the Plan was adopted by the World Health Assembly in Geneva by all 194 member countries during succesful, albeit precarious deliberations. The Every Newborn Action…
-
#SouthAfricaCares Side Event In Photos #PMNCHLive
During a packed event at Michelangelo hotel in Johannesburg, key partners including Save the Children, World Vision, PATH, Mothers 2 Mothers, and the Society of Midwives of South Africa came together to rally support for newborns and celebrate the progress thus far to save millions of vulnerable newborns around the world. The Every Newborn Action…
-
How Ethiopia is Scaling Midwifery to Save More Mothers, Newborns
Addis Ababa- In Ethiopia there are 4.9 million pregnancies each year of which 84% take place in rural areas. Here in Ethiopia, where the vast majority of women deliver at home, only 32% of maternal, newborn and child health needs are being met by midwives according to the newly released State of Midwifery Report. That is troubling…
-
Journalists Travel to Ethiopia to Report on #NewbornHealth
It may seem a little quiet around SocialGoodMoms.com, but for good reason. I am co-leading a group of journalists throughout Ethiopia who are reporting on newborn health with the International Reporting Project. Putting together a robust itinerary for the journalists has been a capstone to all of the knowledge I have gained since learning about…
-
24 Compelling Mobile Photos from #ICMLive
Neonatalie Newborn Resuscitation model in a baby cot, this was one of the models donated by UNFPA to 12 midwifery training schools | UNFPA/Evelyn Kiapi Have you been following the 30th International Confederation of Midwives Triennial Congress? Throughout my travels to low-and middle-income countries and reporting on maternal, newborn, and child health midwives prove time and…
-
11 Key Tweets from #ICMLive
Trainee Midwives demonstrating the childbirth process using the Advanced Child birth simulator Anatomical Model donated by UNFPA at the handover ceremony at Public Health Nurses College. UNFPA/Evelyn Kiapi 3000 midwives have gathered in Prague for the 30th International Confederation of Midwives Triennial Congress. I have been reading the twitter stream closely ahead of my upcoming…
-
Why Newborns are on the World Health Assembly’s Agenda
Today the 67th World Health Assembly convened in Geneva, Switzerland. On tap this week will be discussions about health issues ranging from climate change to tuberculosis. Also on the agenda is a key discussion about newborns and the draft of the Every Newborn Action Plan (item 14.2 on the agenda). You might remember that as…
-
Save the Children Releases New Report on Motherhood in Conflict
This article was originally published on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Impatient Optimists. Every year Save the Children releases its annual State of the World’s Mothers report and each year a magnifying glass is held up to motherhood around the world and how mothers fare based solely on where they live. Now in its fifteenth year, Save the…
-
WHO Releases New Maternal Health and Mortality Data
Maternal health is one of the world’s biggest global health priorities especially as the deadline for the Millineum Development Goals near. As a global priority MDG 5 (improve maternal health) cannot be effectively measured without full and complete data resources. According to the new report, Trends in Maternal Mortality: 1990 – 2013, only 40% of countries accurately record…
-
Last Minute Mother’s Day Gifts That Give Back and Save Lives
Mother’s Day is a celebration full of flowers, cards, and sentimental mementos. It’s also a day to celebrate not only our mothers and the moms we know personally, but mothers everywhere. As you know there are women around the world who will lose their life giving birth. That may sound blunt, but the numbers say it…
-
Support Our Partner, End 7
One thing is certain: I do not know how to read a fiscal budget, but I have sat in awe watching experts dissect the President’s budget line by line and then meticulously explain what programs have been cut and programs that have been relatively spared. So, when our partner, End 7, reported that funding for the…
-
Women Helping Women in Johannesburg’s Townships
This post was originally published on Impatient Optimists. I met Jabulile Tlhabane, 57, in a small woman-owned restaurant on a busy road in Alexandra Township located about 60 minutes outside Johannesburg depending on the time of day and traffic. Alexandra, or Alex as the locals call it, is home to over a million people even though its resident…