Dr. Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete is President of the United Republic of Tanzania. He serves as Co-Chair of the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women's and Children's Health, with Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada and Dr. Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization. He has also served as Chairperson of the African Union. Photo Source: TheCitizen

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on maternal and child health are lagging far behind target. Although Africa has just 12 per cent of the global population, it accounts for half of all maternal deaths and half the deaths of children under five.

In Tanzania, attendance at prenatal clinics is over 94 per cent but only 50 per cent give birth in proper health facilities. It is not like in the United States, where giving birth at home is a matter of choice. In our part of the world, women are unable to reach proper medical help at their most vulnerable time. I was born under the hand of a traditional birth attendant and I grew up healthy and strong to become the President of my country. It is my hope that we can provide the same opportunity to every child.

Once, when I was a Member of Parliament, I was visiting a village out in the countryside when I witnessed firsthand the very problem that we are trying to address. As I was examining a local farm, I noticed four people on the nearby road struggling to place a huge basket on top of a bicycle. It appeared from a distance to be quite a difficult task.

I continued with my meeting but, as we drove back into town, we passed these same villagers only a few kilometres from where I had originally seen them. We stopped to see if we could offer any help. What we found was that the large basket on top of the bicycle contained a woman in labour. In fact, she had been in labour for three days and was not able to deliver.

1,000 women and girls die every day - Photo Source:  ABC.go.com "Mariam's Story.”

In a first for American primetime television, Diane Sawyer has created an ABC 20/20 segment to share the most-often-forgotten, yet continually-tragic plight of 358,000 women and girls who die giving birth each year — 1,000 every day.

With characteristic concern — creating connectedness between two mothers and their infants — Ms. Sawyer gives us a keen sense of what so many people still suffer, across our world.

We see an American woman who gives birth to her baby daughter at a modern hospital in Brooklyn. We see an Afghan girl who worries she will die attempting to give birth to her baby son.

by Doreen Nawa

Sourced from 'Lusaka Daily News'

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons. 2007 Rural Zambian village. Photographer: Florence Devourard. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Bringing forth life in form of a baby is a source of joy for many women and brings about fulfillment in a marriage. It is a moment when families unite to celebrate the arrival of a new family member. But this is not the case for most women in Mulimbu Village in senior Chief Kalindawalo’s area in Petauke district in Eastern Province where giving birth has not only become a burden but a nightmare.

Women dread falling pregnant due to high costs and risks associated with giving birth in this area. Despite only having one clinical officer and no midwife, the nearest and only rural health centre called Luamphande has introduced child delivery charges which are beyond the reach of most rural women due to high poverty levels in these areas. This has left no option for most pregnant women who instead deliver their babies at home with the help of untrained traditional birth attendants.

A global coalition of governments and organisations has launched a new campaign, entitled "Deliver Now",  to drastically improve pre- and post-natal healthcare in places like India, which alone accounts for a staggering 25 percent of the world's child deaths and 20 percent of maternal deaths.

Indigenous birthing practices are being revived by a hospital in Ecuador. The hospital's successes have turned it into a model for a nation that is trying to reduce maternal mortality and neonatal fatalities by 30 to 35 percent.

More than 500,000 women a year -- about one every minute -- die in childbirth across the globe, almost exclusively in the developing world, and almost always from causes preventable with basic medical care. The planet's worst rates are in Sierra Leone. Maternal mortality rarely gets attention from international donors.