Despite lagging in movement towards securing sexual and reproductive health care, targeting syphilis, and monitoring mothers and their babies in the postpartum period, Uruguay has done much to reduce the maternal mortality rate, a major aspect of the fifth Millennium Development Goal. As alerted to by the IPS newswire the country has made significant progress [...]

As reported by The News International, Pakistan has asked for $78 million in financial support to enable Pakistani women to increase the time between pregnancies. Makhdoom Shahabuddin, Pakistani Health Minister, explained to a delegation of U.S. governmental officials that this birth spacing endeavor is critical for meeting the Millennium Development Goal to reduce the maternal [...]

The IPS News wire discusses the multitude of ways mothers in Brazil identify meaningfully with pregnancy, labor, and motherhood depending on cultural expectations and traditional considerations. Attending importantly to the ways that there is never a single way of being a mother, the state National Health Foundation’s (FUNASA) Department of Indigenous Health works to respect [...]

In the six months following the disastrous 7.0 earthquake that hit Haiti, maternal and neonatal health services have largely been secured again for many of the displaced women and girls throughout the nation. Working alongside the UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, the Haitian government has met the variety of health needs with mobile and [...]

June 7-9, 2010: Saving Mothers’ Nichole Young-Lin was at the Women Deliver 2010 Conference where over 3,000 policymakers, nonprofit leaders, health care professionals and advocates gathered to discussed women’s health, education and empowerment. The conference opened with a keynote address from Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon. Throughout the day, notable figures such as Melinda Gates spoke on [...]

Hundreds of thousands of women die each year from pregnancy-related complications. The vast majority of these deaths are unnecessary and preventable, caused by a lack of access to timely, quality health care. These preventable deaths represent violations of essential human rights, including the right to the highest attainable standard of health and the right to [...]

The United States is not a great place to be a mother, according to this year’s annual State of the World’s Mothers report put out by nonprofit Save the Children. We came in 28th place out 160 ranked countries, far below leaders Norway and Australia, and behind almost all of Western [...]

One of the major objectives included in the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals is to slash the global maternal mortality rate by 75 percent by 2015, but little progress has been made in this direction, according to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
To jump start efforts to improve conditions for women and expectant [...]

A new article from the BBC examines how widespread rape has become in South Africa — and draws some truly tragic conclusions. Data collected shows that every girl born in the country has a greater chance of being raped sometime during her life than learning to read. That means that one in four will probably [...]

This article from CNN tells the story of a 12 year old girl, Fawziya Ammodi, who died during childbirth after being forced into marriage in Hodeidah, Yemen.  Tragically, this is a common occurence in Yemen, where impoverished families often give up their daughters in return for dowries or simply to reduce the financial burden on the [...]