Healthy Mothers Make Healthy Families - A WOW! e-Brief

 

INVESTING IN MOTHERS AND CHILDREN

 

Pumwani Maternity Hospital in Kenya is the largest maternal health center in Central and East Africa. The hospital helps approximately 27,000 women give birth each year, most of them poor and between the ages of 14 and 18. Pumwani exemplifies the many problems plaguing maternal health care centers in Africa, suffering from high service costs, lack of trained staff and supplies, and insufficient knowledge on the part of patients.

These factors result in the staggering statistic that over 60 percent of births in Africa are not attended by a skilled health care worker. The lack of professional assistance during pregnancy and childbirth heightens the risk for complications, increasing the likelihood of maternal and child death or disability. Research has consistently shown that investing in mothers’ health and well-being corresponds to an overall improvement in the quality of life and future prospects of their children.

 

The report, State of the World’s Mothers, published by the humanitarian group Save the Children identifies the presence of a skilled attendant at birth and access to, and use of, family planning services as the areas most strongly associated with child survival and well-being.

 

Because many women in developing countries lack access to prenatal health care, the results for both mother and child are grave. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 800,000 women in Nigeria alone suffer from fistula, a disabling condition often caused by problems during childbirth. In Tanzania, 9,000 women die in childbirth annually of pregnancy complications. Almost 50 percent of women in Tanzania have no access to medical facilities because the facilities are too far away and the women have no transportation. According to WHO, 75 percent of maternal fatalities in sub-Saharan Africa could be prevented if deliveries were to take place in health centers in the presence of trained staff and attendants.

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The United States Population Fund and WHO agree that involving men in the process of improving maternal health is also important. Cultural practices, such as female genital mutilation, early marriage and multiple pregnancies, further provide hurdles to ensuring the good health of expectant mothers. For example, women who have undergone female genital mutilation are more likely to suffer from obstructed labor. In addition, girls who give birth between the ages of 15 and 20 are twice as likely to die in childbirth than women in the 20s, and girls under 15 are more than five times as likely to die. Adolescent girls also run the highest risk of premature delivery.

 

Furthermore, both the young age and low status of women in society leave women with little power to determine when, and with whom, they become pregnant. Without access to family planning services, women have little choice in the number and timing of their pregnancies. In Africa, many women feel pressure to have a certain number of children because often their status in society is associated with how many children they are able to produce. The lack of access to family planning also leads some women to choose unsafe alternatives. WHO reports that about 4 million abortions took place in Africa in 2004, although abortion is illegal in many African countries. Most of these abortions were performed in unsafe conditions, contributing to about 30,000 deaths, about 13 percent of all maternal deaths in Africa that year. These deaths could be prevented with access to contraception, but less than 25 percent of African women have access to contraception.

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Most importantly, by investing in mothers and focusing on keeping them healthy during pregnancy, children begin life under better conditions. According to the report, State of the World’s Mothers 2006, by undertaking simple solutions to problems encountered by expectant mothers, three to four million deaths of newborn children could be prevented annually. Additionally, focusing on maternal nutrition during pregnancy is key to preventing malnutrition in children. The cycle of malnourishment begins very early in life, and when pregnant women do not have enough food or the right food to eat, their babies are born with a low birth rate. This, in turn, drastically increases the chance the baby will die from infections and malnourishment. About four million babies die every year within their first month. Malnutrition has been shown to be a leading underlying cause of childhood mortality.  By simply focusing on improving the nutrition of pregnant women, the risk for infant death and disease can be reduced by one-third.

World Neighbors and Healthy Mothers

World Neighbors adopts a variety of methods to improve the lives of mothers and their newborn children. These methods focus on delaying pregnancy until the mother is able to safely carry, deliver and care for a child, as well as educating women on healthy practices to follow before, during and after pregnancy.

 

Increasing access to reproductive health care is a key component of lowering maternal and infant mortality. Reproductive health includes family planning, health services, health education and prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections. Improving reproductive health care also focuses on providing a safe, clean and supportive environment for labor and birth.

 

World Neighbors works together with families, communities and partner organizations to ensure that the needs of mothers and young children are being met. Part of the philosophy utilized by World Neighbors in working with communities is to empower mothers and young women with more reproductive choices. For more than 50 years, World Neighbors has made reproductive health an essential component of its programs in the communities where it works. Research has shown that one of the most important factors that help improve the livelihoods of people living in developing is access to family planning services.

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When World Neighbors first enters a community, many couples do not know that there are various methods of family planning that can help them determine the number and spacing of their children.

 

Yaori Waloyama, a program participant from Burkina Faso (West Africa), describes her experience: “I am a mother to three children, but have been pregnant eight times. My situation is not unusual in Burkina Faso,” where miscarriages and stillbirths are common due to a lack of basic care. World Neighbors taught Yaori about family planning options and helped her access health care during her pregnancy. “I am sure that it is family planning and the health care that helped me to have [my daughter] Adjima.” She says she is ready for a break between children. “I want to rest for six years. I am really very tired, I want fresh air.”

 

World Neighbors helps provide education on local clinics that provide family planning services and gives referrals to partner organizations that deal with this issue. Couples are taught about both natural methods of family planning and contraception. World Neighbors further works to ensure that communication between the couple, which is a key factor in family planning, is ongoing.

 

There are a variety of ways in which World Neighbors educates communities about reproductive choices. In some communities, partner organizations establish and run local health clinics that provide access to contraception, family planning and prenatal care. In other areas, such as Kenya and Tanzania, World Neighbors works with partner organizations to train community health care workers to provide counseling services to couples and families. They are trained on the principles of family planning as part of a holistic community health program.

World Neighbors works to offer education and options to couples and women about their reproductive choices. By working with communities and partner organizations to establish family planning services in rural areas, World Neighbors attempts to reduce the complications that can be associated with pregnancy and childbirth, such as disease, death and disability.

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In addition to reproductive health information, World Neighbors works to help keep mothers and children healthy. For example, enriched porridge made with locally available foods is one way to improve the nutrition and health of babies. Abibata Sore, another participant from Burkina Faso says, “In the past, my child was never full or satisfied. Now in making porridge I mix millet and fish, sometimes millet and beans. I always add oil. I know the enriched porridge was good because my child liked it – he ate it all. And now, he doesn’t cry from hunger all the time.”

Get Involved

 

By volunteering with World Neighbors or making a donation to WOW! you support the holistic, integrated work that World Neighbors does around the world World Neighbors does around the world involving education, health and nutrition. Safe motherhood is an integral part of our community and reproductive health work, and helps thousands of women a year have healthier pregnancies and births.

In addition, violence against women continues to affect every aspect of women's lives. Join WOW! and the coalition Women Thrive Worldwide in advocating for passage of the International Violence Against Women Act.

 

Sign a petition urging Congress to support the International Violence Against Women Act

Violence against women is a major cause of poverty and a huge barrier to economic opportunity. In addition to being an extreme human rights violation, it keeps women from getting an education, working and earning the income they need to lift their families out of poverty. The International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA), if passed, would consistently incorporate solutions for reducing violence against women into U.S. foreign assistance programs. WOW! and World Neighbors, along with other coalition members of Women Thrive Worldwide, support passage of this act.

 

Learn more about I-VAWA and sign the petition here (http://www.womenthrive.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=133).

 

Learn More

We recommend the following resources, a number of which were utilized in the preparation of this issue brief, as good sources for further learning on the subject of healthy mothers and children.

 

Harinarayan, Anuradha. “The Best Way to Fight Hunger is to Invest in Mothers.” 2001. Westport, CN: Save the Children. Available online at http://www.savethechildren.org/newsroom/speeches-and- testimony/the-best-way-to-fight-hunger-invest-in-mothers.html

 

Kimani, Mary. “Investing in the Health of Africa’s Mothers.” Africa Renewal. Vol. 21, No. 4. Jan. 2008. United Nations. Available online at http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/ afrec/vol21no4/africa-renewal-21no4-english.pdf

 

Langue-Menye, Gisele. “With Mother’s Help, More Girls are Going to School in Cameroon.” May 2007. New York: UNICEF. Available online at http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/cameroon_39815.html

 

State of the World's Mothers 2007. Saving the Lives of Children Under Five. Westport, CN: Save the Children. Available online at http://www.savethechildren.org/publications/mothers/2007/SOWM-2007-final.pdf

                 

State of the World’s Mothers 2006. Saving the Lives of Mothers and Newborns. Westport, CN: Save the Children. Available online at http://www.savethechildren.org/publications/mothers/2006/SOWM_2006_final.pdf

 

A WOW! e-Brief

Work of Women @ World Neighbors

May 2008

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