Tag Archives: maternal health

Maternal Health Key To Empowering Women

May 20, 2011 at 2:17 PM

By Amnesty’s Women’s Human Rights Coordination Group

Next week, we’ll be concluding our Mother’s Day blog series by looking at the international dimensions of maternal mortality.  Today we’d like to focus on maternal health as a key to empowering women worldwide.

Globally, motherless children are 10 times more likely to die within two years of their mothers’ death.  A mother’s health and nutrition, what care and assistance she received during her pregnancy and delivery determined whether she and you are alive today, and whether you are battling with developmental problems, birth defects, or illnesses, including perinatal HIV.

Every 90 seconds a woman dies from pregnancy or childbirth-related complications. This is 1,000 women, or more than 2 filled-to-capacity jumbo jets crashing daily.  Amnesty International considers this a human rights scandal, not only because almost all of these deaths are preventable, but because they are the culmination of abuses and discrimination against women, from insufficient access to basic healthcare, lack of comprehensive family planning and reproductive healthcare services, early marriages, gender-based violence, to inadequate redress.

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Tell Congress: Pass Maternal Health Accountability Act of 2011

May 10, 2011 at 9:59 AM

On Sunday you called your mom. Today, call on your elected officials to protect maternal health.

This Wednesday, May 11, a Mother’s Day briefing on Capitol Hill will shine a light on the maternal health care crisis in the United States. Featured guest Christy Turlington Burns, maternal health advocate and director of No Woman No Cry, will join Amnesty International researcher Nan Strauss and others to advocate for the Maternal Health Accountability Act of 2011.

Drafted to address some of the most pressing recommendations in Amnesty International’s report on maternal mortality in the US, Deadly Delivery, this innovative bipartisan legislation would:

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First Year of Sierra Leone’s Free Care Policy

April 28, 2011 at 8:37 AM

By Kim Lanegran, Sierra Leone Country Specialist

Pregnant women at a maternity waiting house in Sierra Leone © AI

On April 27th, Sierra Leoneans celebrated two important anniversaries: 50 years of independence from Great Britain; one year of  free health care to children under five and pregnant and lactating women.

Since independence, Sierra Leone has struggled from crushing poverty, human rights atrocities and a decade of horrible civil war.  When the war ended in 2002, Sierra Leone faced many challenges, not the least of which was that it was among the very worst countries in the world to be a pregnant woman or a child.

Amnesty International played a pivotal role drawing attention to the human costs of inadequate maternal health care in Sierra Leone and helped Sierra Leoneans demand reforms from their government.  Amnesty’s work emphasizing that maternal health is a human right and that other human rights abuses, such as gender discrimination, exacerbate the failure of health care delivery was crucial.

This work continues in Sierra Leone, Africa and throughout the world. Join us in shining a light on maternal health this Mother’s Day.

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Lobby For Maternal Health In The US

April 20, 2011 at 10:25 AM

Although the United States spends $98 billion a year on health care (more than any other country), women in the US actually have a greater risk of dying from pregnancy-related complications than women in 49 countries.

Every day, 2 to 3 women in the United States die from complications of pregnancy and childbirth.  About 50% of these deaths could have been prevented with better access to quality maternal health care.

This is not just an accident; this is a violation of human rights.

What can YOU do to help?

Amnesty International’s Lobby Week is coming up.  During the first week of May, volunteers from across the country will meet with their Senators and Representatives to encourage them to take action to stop these preventable maternal deaths.

We need your help to ensure the elected officials who represent you have the facts and can help to pass strong legislation to reduce maternal mortality.

So stand up for human rights and maternal health by signing up to coordinate or join a delegation to meet your elected officials. With your visits you can help save lives.

This World Health Day, Shine a Light on Maternal Health

April 7, 2011 at 2:56 PM

Pregnant women at a maternity waiting house in northern Sierra Leone, where they can stay fom the ninth month of pregnancy until their babies are delivered.

Today is World Health Day – and you can celebrate by shining a light on maternal health!

World Health Day marks the anniversary of the founding, in 1948, of the World Health Organization, whose constitution — signed by all 193 Members of the United Nations — states that “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.”

Preventable deaths in pregnancy and childbirth are violations of the right to health, and the right to freedom from discrimination due to gender, race, ethnicity, immigration status, or income level. Maternal mortality is not just a public health emergency – it is a human rights crisis.

Every 90 seconds, another woman dies from complications of pregnancy and childbirth – that’s 1,000 women every day, more than 350,000 each year. The vast majority of these deaths could be prevented, and ninety-nine percent happen in the developing world — the greatest disparity between developed and developing countries of any global health issue.

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Poor Healthcare Endangering Mothers in Zimbabwe

March 9, 2011 at 9:59 PM

Mother and child outside her home in Hopley Settlement, Harare, Zimbabwe.

Lack of access to appropriate prenatal and post-natal care in informal settlements in Zimbabwe is endangering mothers and increasing infant mortality rates. Forced into unsafe dwellings with no heat or running water when the government displaced 700,000 people in 2005, for women in these Zimbabwe communities pregnancy is a scary proposition.

According to Amnesty International research, “Although thousands of people have been living at Hopley for more than five years, there are no maternal or newborn health services in the community. Women often give birth in unhygienic conditions in their plastic shacks and without skilled birth attendants. In order to reach maternal health services, women have to travel to a municipal clinic in the suburb of Glen Norah, about 8km away.”

There is no ambulance service to these communities, forcing women to walk to the clinic while in labor because they cannot afford a taxi or bus. Women frequently give birth at home, unaided and alone. The women Amnesty interviewed stated they were aware of the importance of medical care during pregnancy and after delivery, but due to costs and inaccessibility, they were not able to seek this vital healthcare. Inability to afford healthcare affects 75% of women in the lowest five wealth groups in Zimbabwe, of which most of the residents in these informal settlements fall.

Further, 45% of mothers in Zimbabwe have no access to a postnatal check by a trained health provider. Amnesty International documented the deaths of 21 infants in a six month period in 2010. Adequate living conditions and access to necessary health services after delivery could have prevented many of these deaths.

We need to demand the Zimbabwean government takes care of its women and children. Tell government officials of the importance of providing affordable healthcare, placed in the community. No more women should have to give birth alone and then watch their babies die.

One Post Read-One Mother Dead

March 9, 2011 at 11:03 AM

By the time you finish reading this post, one woman will have died due to conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth. Around the world, one woman dies every 90 seconds in pregnancy or childbirth-that’s more than 350,000 women every year.   And here in the United States, more than two women die every day.

These deaths are a human rights violation.  Why?  Because women are not dying of diseases that doctors cannot cure, but because societies have yet to decide that their lives are worth saving.

As part of our celebration of International Women’s Day, we recognize the women all around the world who die while trying to give life.

In the United States, women have a higher risk of dying of pregnancy-related complications than women in 49 other countries, including Kuwait, Bulgaria, and South Korea. In addition, African American women are nearly four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than white women. Amnesty International found that most of these deaths could have been prevented with access to good quality health care.

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Keeping Maternal Mortality on the Agenda at UN Human Rights Meeting

November 3, 2010 at 1:11 PM

Linda Coale died of a blood clot a week after giving birth to her son, Ben, by c-section. The infant welcome packet included extensive information about acclimatizing pets to a new baby, but had failed to adequately alert her to warning signs of complications, despite the heightened risk due to her surgery.

On Friday, the United States will appear before the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) for its “Universal Periodic Review” (UPR).  The UPR is a process through which the human rights records of all 192 UN Member States are reviewed once every four years.

I have come to Geneva to monitor the US’s participation in the UPR and to educate both the US government and those of other member states, on Amnesty International’s concerns about the state of human rights in the United States. In April, Amnesty submitted a written report to the HRC detailing our US human rights concerns, ranging from the use of the death penalty, to the need to establish a commission of inquiry into all war on terror-related detention policies and practices, the need to bar racial profiling in law enforcement, and the need for a human rights executive order to help establish a domestic human rights infrastructure.

Today I had the opportunity to speak about another tragic human rights issue that Amnesty has been focusing on: maternal mortality in the United States.  At the event, hosted by the Center for Reproductive Rights, I featured the findings of our report, Deadly Delivery: The maternal health care crisis in the USA and discussed the maternal health crisis in the United States, particularly among marginalized communities.

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