Because Every Mother Counts

Filmmaker Christy Turlington Burns shares how a dangerous situation during the birth of her child led to hope for thousands of women around the world.

I always knew that becoming a mom would bring me closer to other moms. But I recently realized that the complication I experienced after delivering my first child deepened that bond, giving me a true sense of the sisterhood that is motherhood and inspiring me to help women around the world who face similar situations in childbirth.

The birth of my daughter was a success but an hour after the delivery I still hadn’t pushed out my placenta and I was bleeding heavily. Luckily, the OB who backed my midwife stepped into my room just as things were getting tense. He quickly controlled the bleeding and the situation was stabilized.

Soon after I learned that my exact complication often leads to life threatening postpartum hemorrhage and that PPH is the leading cause of maternal death in the world. Hundreds of thousands of women die every year from pregnancy and childbirth-related causes — one thousand women each day. And the real clincher is that almost all of these deaths can be prevented.

For the past seven years, I’ve tried to shed light on this under-reported issue and build a movement of people dedicated to ending these senseless deaths.

In 2008, I set out to make a documentary film, “No Woman, No Cry” to humanize this issue and bring it to broader audiences around the world.

Shot over the course of two years in four countries, the film puts audiences in the footsteps of a Maasai woman who must walk five miles — while in labor — to a clinic with no electricity; a young pregnant woman in the slums of Bangladesh who is too ashamed to seek care; a pregnant OB in Guatemala who helps women who have suffered from botched illegal abortions; and a midwife in central Florida who treats uninsured women who are denied appointments elsewhere.

Along the way, the film introduces audiences to the tireless and devoted healthcare workers — doctors, nurses, midwives, community health volunteers — who are going above and beyond every day to save women’s lives.

After finishing the film in 2010, I founded Every Mother Counts (EMC), an advocacy and mobilization campaign to increase awareness of and support for improved maternal and child health. We’re launching our first major push this Mother’s Day through the “Count Me In!” campaign and are thrilled to have BabyCenter as a partner in this effort. (See photo of Christy below with BabyCenter staff at its headquarters in San Francisco)

Our goal is to engage people who never considered the magnitude of this issue — and surely didn’t think they could make a difference. But our message is that you can. You can make a difference by simply indicating that you care — join the Facebook community, send in your email or share your own story and what it felt like becoming a mom in our “vwall,” a tapestry of moms from around the world all united by this universal issue.

Or, you can directly help moms in need by:

• Buying the Starbucks CD ($8 of which will go to EMC and CARE);
• Collecting used cell phones and recycling them so that health providers can better communicate with patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo;
• Sponsoring training for a midwife in Afghanistan; or
• Helping provide transport to connect pregnant women to the care they need in Kenya.

Please use EveryMotherCounts.org as your resource to learn more about global maternal health or check outBabyCenter’s page dedicated to this issue.

The sisterhood of motherhood is global and just as we wouldn’t let a neighbor in the U.S. die because she couldn’t get a ride to the hospital, the moms of the world need to rise to the occasion to ensure that ALL mothers have access to care that can save their lives. It’s a big challenge and we have a lot of work ahead but I know that if anyone is up to a good challenge, it’s a mom.

BabyCenter is celebrating Mother’s Day 2011 by sharing inspirational stories of real BabyCenter moms just like you. For more, see our “Celebrating Moms. Celebrating you.” page on BabyCenter.