Mother’s Day begins with a safe birth. But every two minutes a woman dies from complications during pregnancy or childbirth – taking more than 250,000 lives each year. Accompanied by a trained and equipped professional, many of these women can be saved. That’s why Direct Relief supports midwives who are helping mothers in need access vital care and are the
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Saturday was an exciting day for the midwifery graduates at the School of Midwifery in Makeni, Sierra Leone, and marked an important milestone in the West African nation’s progress toward improving maternal and child health services. The World Needs Midwives I attended the ceremony to present the Direct Relief Midwife Kits to the new graduates. It was a great celebration—and at
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More Care Reported Worldwide for Women Suffering with “The Backyard Disease,” but Problem Outpaces Efforts to Address Santa Barbara, Calif. (April, 15, 2013)— Global data from 42 countries released this week on the Global Fistula Map reflects a grim future for most of the estimated two million women living with obstetric fistula worldwide and the estimated 50,000 to 100,000 who
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Gynocare Fistula Center—a nongovernmental organization in Western Kenya providing reproductive health services to women—began under the dynamic and dedicated leadership of Dr. Hillary Mabeya in 2009. Since becoming the first specialized fistula surgeon in the region in 2003, Dr. Mabeya has improved the lives of hundreds of women who have been suffering from obstetric fistula, a hole in the birth canal caused
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Cambodia has significantly high rates of childhood malnutrition and maternal mortality, the result of years of war and civil unrest. To help improve pediatric health conditions in Cambodia, Direct Relief is partnering with Angkor Hospital for Children (AHC) and the healthcare company Abbott and its foundation, the Abbott Fund, to support nutrition and education programs. AHC is a pediatric teaching
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Knowing their status is a necessary step for women to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, but pregnant women often lack access to HIV testing. Through the Determine Donation Program, which works to provide Rapid HIV tests free-of-charge to people in need via nongovernmental organizations, Direct Relief recently initiated a shipment of these tests and services to Nepal through Family Health International
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