I am sitting here staring at my monitor, trying to find words to say or flattering comments but the truth is I can’t. Its easy to read these things on a page, to see them on the news, but its harder to actually experience them and see people who have to live through them. Infancy and Maternal mortality rate in African countries have its roots not only during delivery, but it begins loong before pregnancy. Lack of education on proper diet, under aged women getting pregnancy on daily basis (“I remember a day when I was in a public transport famously known as Dala dala here in Tanzania, the bus fair for adults is around 400TSH and for children is 200 TSH, whilst on the bus, a young lady entered the bus carrying a baby, she was between the age of 15–17 by her looks, technically she was around the same age as the age of most of the school girls, so she paid 200TSH, the bus conductor, began telling her that she was supposed to pay 400TSH, since if she was old enough to bare a child, she is also old enough to pay 400TSH. Most of the passengers protested and in the end she paid 200TSH”). The culture, itself could be the main cause of Maternal and Infancy death. When I speak of culture , its both the traditional and the newly emerging globalization culture. In most remote areas young girls are married from the moment they are born, from the age of nine years old or thirteen they go and begin to leave with their husbands, education to most of these societies has helped to eradicate these old traditions, other traditions like female genital mutilation in some of the societies leads to complication of birth to most of the women, and hence their deaths from exessive blood loss from the wounds of their genitals. The new culture also comes with its challenges, young children learn about sex before they learn about safe sex practices, and differnet contraceptive methods. This occurs in urban areas, where young women get pregnancy while they are still in school. The government policy states when a girl get pregnancy whilst still school, the father responsible is imprisoned for 30 years, and in most cases, most of the girls fail to continue with their education, the risk is high to both sides, hence the best option is to abort the baby, with poor ways of abortion, the mother can get infection of other diseases, sometimes die due to complecations. Medicines YES, they are needed, CONTRACEPTIVES TRUE they are also needed, but more than anything, KNOWLEDGE AND EDUCATION about pregnancy and maternal health should be provided to womens, expecting mothers and even mothers who already have children. http://beaheal.wordpress.com/ I am a tech guy, I am helping my cousin who knows a bit about medicine to do just that. Two weeks old blog, with alot to learn, and alot to give, it occured just as a coincidence that I came across this post, really motivating, knowing that we are not alone…. LETS SAVE OUR MOTHERS