maternal illness

Thirty-eight of 58 countries surveyed may fail to meet their target of 95 percent coverage by skilled attendants by 2015 unless an additional 120,000 midwives are trained, deployed and retained. A new report also indicates that upgrading midwifery services could save more than 3.6 million lives each year by 2015.

The architectural design of two newly built public maternity hospitals in Malawi, which has one of the world’s highest rates of women dying in childbirth, seeks to respect the human rights of birthing women and has had a significant impact on Malawi’s maternal health care system.  Ill-designed government-run maternal health centers litter many poor countries and contribute to unacceptably high maternal death rates. There’s a pressing global need to design public maternity units that uphold the dignity of socially disadvantaged women.

It's been said that in an unequal world, women are the most unequal among equals.  Obstetric fistula is a living example of this statement.

According to a report by Gonzalo Ortiz of InterPress News Service (IPS), Ecuador has achieved a steep decline in maternal deaths and illness through a model program "centered on the mother's needs and not those of the doctor or midwife."

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