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Gates Highlights the Rise in Child Deaths Amid Global Health Cuts
Today, the Gates Foundation released its annual Goalkeepers report that tracks the progress of the Sustainable Development Goals. This year’s report, We Can’t Stop at Almost, highlights the growing number of child deaths given the recent cuts to global health funding.
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Baylor University Conducts In-Person, Virtual Training to Save Mothers, Babies
Baylor College of Medicine has performed substantive work in The Gambia to instruct frontline health workers on maternal and child health through its “Training of Trainers” and GOALL (Gambian Obstetrics Anesthesia Learning and Leadership) programs. With the ninth-highest maternal mortality rate, access to quality health care for women of reproductive age in The Gambia is…
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How health workers in Kibera are assessing sick children using a new digital health tool
By Maryanne W. Waweru l maryanne@mummytales.com Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa. After two days of nursing her two-year-old daughter at home, an anxious Maximilla Kangahi made her way to a clinic in her neighbourhood for help. At the health facility, Maximilla was received by Waida Kasaya, clinical officer at the Beyond Zero clinic in Karanja, one of Kibera’s 18…
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How the U.S. promotes gender equality around the world
UNESCO recognizes October 11 as International Day of the Girl Child to promote girls’ empowerment and human rights. Above, girls attend a class in Kolkata, India, February 11. (© Indranil Aditya/NurPhoto/Getty Images) The United States works with international partners to advance gender equity and equality around the world. Speaking on the sidelines of the U.N.…
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Fighting the Anti-Vaccine Rhetoric with Science
In the interest of promoting more robust discourse around the importance of regular vaccinations for serious but preventable contagious conditions, MHA@GW is hosting a guest post series in honor of National Immunization Awareness Month (NIAM). During the month of August,they’re featuring blogs from thought leaders and advocates who were asked to answer the question, “Why…
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Register: Free Online Course Examines Women, Child, and Adolescent Health #FLImprovingHealth
The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is launching a free online course about women, child, and adolescent health. The course called Improving the Health of Women, Children and Adolescents: from Evidence to Action will last for six weeks starting on Monday, September 28, 2015. Registrations are now open. While the course is primarily targeted to…
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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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A Place Where a Child Arrives Malnourished and Leaves Healthy
By Dr. Leslee Jaeger I feel overwhelming gratitude for the many mothers in my life – the mother that raised me, the mother that raised my fabulous husband, the mother of my three children created thru egg donation and the Korean and Chinese mothers that gave birth to my daughters and then made the difficult decision to place them…
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Maternal and Newborn Health News from the 68th World Health Assembly
The 68th World Health Assembly features the launch of two important reports – The WHO report on Strategies Toward Ending Preventable Maternal Mortality [PDF] and the Every Newborn Action Plan Progress Report [PDF]. Maternal health remains one of the most elusive Millennium Development Goal to achieve. While maternal deaths worldwide have been nearly halved since…
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Prize Provides $250K to Fund Programs That Save Children’s Lives
Across the world, over 17,000 children under age five continue to die every day, mostly from preventable causes and treatable diseases. This translates to approximately 12 children every minute and over 6.3 million total in 2013. More than half of these child deaths can be attributed to malnutrition (approximately 45% of all child deaths), pneumonia,…
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Newborn and Child Health Education Through Haitian Art
Inside the child malnutrition unit at Hôpital Albert Schweitzer, the largest regional hospital in Haiti’s Artibonite region, colorful murals have been painted over the beds. They were specifically designed to teach parents, especially mothers, how to keep their newborns and children healthy and well-fed. In Haiti one in five children suffers from chronic malnutrition and…
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Infographic: 2015 Mothers’ Index Rankings
As in years past, the Nordic countries lead the world in being the best countries to be a mother and to raise children. Save the Children’s Mothers’ Index ranked countries based on maternal health, children’s well-being, educational status, and economic and political status. Sub-Saharan African countries and Haiti rounded out the worst places to be…
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Save the Children Sounds Alarm on Plight of the World’s Urban Poor
When you think about very low- and middle-income countries you might assume that the poor in deep rural pockets in these countries have the highest chance for maternal and infant mortality. That isn’t the case according to Save the Children’s latest State of the World’s Mothers report released today. The report says that it is…
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Photo Essay: Vaccines in Deschappelles, Haiti
Yesterday I was in Deschappelles, Haiti about three hours north of Port-au-Prince. Deschappelles is where the largest regional hospital, Hôpital Albert Schweitzer, is and has been for nearly 60 years. It serves a population of 350,000 and routinely takes in patients from outside of the region. In addition to hospital services Hôpital Albert Schweitzer also arranges and…
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Help Children in Crisis With a Simple Social Share #Relay4Kids
As hard as it may sound, children are living in crisis as I write this post and it honestly breaks my heart. There are Syrian children who are living under harsh conditions in refugee camps who just want to go home to a world they once knew and there are also children who are running…
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11 Photos in Honor of World Water Day
This Sunday, March 22, is the United Nations’ World Water Day. 354 million people continue to not have access to clean, drinking water every day. This is a critical problem because dirty water causes a whole host of water-borne diseases that kill the smallest children, especially those under the age of five. “Without access to…
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A Preventable Polio Story
By Banke Sorinwa, a Nigerian mother and worker in financial services in Lagos. It was our first day back to boarding school after the summer break. Some students shared hugs and narrated tales of the long holiday, while others were teary eyed because we were once again stuck in the four walls of school. It was…
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The Critical Stance on Raising Vaccine Awareness Abroad and at Home
By Lisi Martinez Lotz PhD, Program Director, Vaccine Ambassadors Vaccine Ambassadors was created by parents and healthcare professionals in an effort to raise awareness about the importance of immunizations for all children, whether living in an area where vaccines are part of routine care or where this resource is far less common. By becoming Vaccine…
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UNICEF Announces Largest-Ever Fundraising Appeal: How Parents Can Help
UNICEF announced its largest fundraising appeal in history, $3.1 billion, to provide assistance to 62 million children who are victims of armed conflicts, natural disasters, and infectious diseases. This latest appeal is a $1 billion increase over UNICEF’s 2014 appeal. “A staggering 1 in 10 of the world’s children – or more than 230 million…