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  the issue	•	team	•	contact	•	press center	•	supporters

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  guatemala	•	liberia	•	dominican republic	•	lifestyle modification

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  soul cycle charity ride	•	hunter bellevue nursing students fundraiser

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Saving Mothers offers clinical care and public health services to women in and around Monrovia, Liberia, and coordinates trips for surgeons to perform life-altering fistula repair surgeries alongside local health care providers.

WHY LIBERIA?		WHAT WE'RE DOING
After 15 years of civil war, Liberia's health care system is in dire need of medical resources and human capital. According to the Liberia Demographic and Health Survey, the maternal mortality in recent years has climbed 71% from 580 maternal deaths out of 100,000 live births in 2000 to 994 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2007. Many of these deaths could be prevented with sanitation and supplies. More than 36% of married women in Liberia are unable to access family planning services, and 76.3% of women who responded to the nationwide survey indicated that they have problems accessing health care in general. Fistulas, in particular, pose a health crisis for women in Liberia. Caused by muscle death during obstructed labor, lack of access to cesarean sections, or violent sexual abuse, fistulas are incredibly painful and often alienate women from their communities.		Saving Mothers in partnership with HEARRT improves access to care for women at John F. Kennedy and Redemption Hospitals in Monrovia, Saving Mothers volunteers provide: • Sanitary birthing kits • Prenatal and postnatal care • Oncologic and urogynecologic procedures • Cesarean sections, and other surgical interventions • Training sessions for medical staff • Other public health outreach services Now, the organization is tackling fistula repair, deploying a team of anesthesiologists and surgeons to treat women, many of whom have been waiting for surgery for more than a year. Saving Mothers plans to invest more time and resources to help these women heal following treatment.

WHAT YOU CAN DO		NOTES FROM THE FIELD
To keep the POWHER program in Monrovia going, Saving Mothers needs resources and supplies. By contributing here, you can make more and longer physician trips to Liberia possible. In just a week, our team performed 16 fistula repair operations. Saving Mothers is also looking for donations of surgical head lamps. Our surgeons depend on them to perform complex obstetric and gynecological procedures in the field. If you would like to provide our organization with head lamps, please contact President Nichole Young-Lin. You should also contact Nichole if you are interested in making an in-kind donation or becoming a corporate sponsor for the POWHER program in Liberia.		Saving Mothers supported two surgical trips to Liberia in 2010. Many of the women undergoing fistula repair procedures were young and had been ostracized from their families and communities for years. Volunteer physicians also performed a number of emergent gynecologic surgeries alongside local health care providers, fostering cross-cultural learning.