Sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest region on Earth, is a place where more than 600,000 women die in pregnancy or childbirth every year due to lack of proper care and only 30 percent of the population has access to health care at all. The situation in Guinea-Bissau is among the worst in the region.
Kate Steger authors guest blog post on maternal mortality for One.org
Published June 11, 2010
Below is a guest blog post on maternal mortality by the Pulitzer Center's Kate Steger published this morning on One.org.
The miracle of birth is astonishing, humbling, and wonderful to behold. After witnessing my nephew's delivery, I thought a maternity ward must be the best place in the world to work.
But anyone who works there for long knows that it doesn't always go well. Modern technology and good obstetric training help many in the developed world avoid difficulties during birth, but in the developing world—where health facilities can be difficult to reach, understaffed and lacking in even basic equipment and medicine— delivering a baby can be filled with danger.
Our team at the Pulitzer Center would like to solicit your thoughts, experiences and opinions on maternal health. To do that, we've teamed up with the writers' site Helium to sponsor a writing contest that we hope will prompt a global conversation. The question for the competition is:
"Hundreds of thousands of women die each year due to complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. What are first steps to making a difference?"
For me, witnessing a birth—even one without complications—was a life-changing experience that's motivated me to raise awareness about maternal mortality issues. I know the collection of essays inspired by this contest will be a powerful voice in that effort and I look forward to reading them.
The deadline for the competition is Thursday, June 24 so make sure to submit your essay right away. All submitted essays will be shown on the Helium and Pulitzer websites and a winner will be selected from the 10 best entries as judged by the Helium community. The winner will receive the Pulitzer Center Global Issues/Citizen Voices Award and will be announced on Wednesday, July 7.
Last month the British medical journal The Lancet reported that in the span of three decades, the number of women dying in childbirth or during pregnancy worldwide decreased substantially.
The Dying for Life Gateway is a response to the global maternal health crisis. The Gateway examines motherhood as a continuum that encompasses reproductive health, family planning, pregnancy,...
Gateways
Kate Steger received a Masters of Public Health with a concentration in International Health from Boston University in May 2010. She also has an MA in East Asian Studies from the University of...