What’s Stopping Safe Births Everywhere?

Around the world, on average, over 500 babies are born every 2 minutes. But in that same moment, one mother dies from pregnancy related causes. And here's the thing, most of those deaths are completely preventable. Women are not dying of something untreatable. They're dying from hypertension, hemorrhage, infection complications we know how to address. So what's the problem? Turns out it's not just medicine or equipment or doctors. It's also about access, community, trust, and making care actually work for the people it's supposed to serve. The good news, all over the world, Rotary projects and clubs are backing community-led approaches to maternal health. We wanted to see it for ourselves, so we packed our bags and visited three countries to see the projects in action. Here in Papa New Guinea, one of the biggest issues facing mothers is accessing health care. Many give birth at home far from medical facilities without the help of skilled healthcare workers. One way to fix that, empowering midwives, this Buddy Leadership Program is doing just that in a unique way. I sat down with Judy, a Rotary program leader, to learn more. The PNG Midwifery leadership buddy program is a program where midwives from Australia meet with midwives from PNG. They through a workshop learn leadership and advocacy skills that empower them to ask for things to improve their practice no matter where they practice in the city in rural and very remote areas where they might be the only caregiver. Yes, as a midwife, it's not only you concentrate on a clinical setting. You go into the community, you advocate, you teach the community, and then when you mingle with the community, that's when you try to understand them. Over the week, I saw passionate midwives grow into leaders ready to take on challenges in their communities. We also traveled to Nigeria where maternal death rates are among the highest in the world And here too, things are changing. We met with some We met with some of the team at Together for Healthy Families in Nigeria, supported by Rotary's programs of scale grant that aims to tackle the problem through a holistic community-led approach. It is a program in Nigeria to help create awareness, reach out to the people and that's why what they do is carry out home visit. As me as a health worker, the role is to provide the service of the woman, children, families in the community. Give them the importance of antinatal, immunization, and delivering at facility. And then there is right here in the United States, a nation of cutting-edge hospitals, yet the highest maternal mortality rate among major economically developed countries. We visited a club just outside of Chicago that's launching a project aimed at addressing the stark disparities in maternal and child health outcomes in underresourced communities. I talked with the I talked with the project lead Jose Lopez It's like neighbor helping neighbor approach. So this health worker will become the neighbor and we can use those workers to deliver the messages that we need to deliver to the families within our project. Maternal deaths are unacceptable and more importantly preventable. Rotary members are doing their part by investing in midwifes creating community approaches, and listening to women. Because every woman everywhere deserves her life protected when giving life.