Every Mother Counts: A Focus on Africa
The highest burden of maternal and infant deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. Every Mother Counts writes about the challenges and solutions mothers in Africa and about EMC’s efforts to create change.
We are equally committed to the reduction of preventable deaths at birth in every country, but during February and March, Every Mother Counts is turning our attention to the African Continent. That is where the highest burden of maternal and infant deaths occur. To give you a sense of what that means, a woman living in sub-Saharan Africa has a 1 in 39 chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth.
As Christy mentioned above, when we began filming No Woman, No Cry in 2008, we struggled to choose a single African country where we could address all the barriers that prevent African mothers from receiving critical maternity care. We ultimately decided on Tanzania, which has a maternal mortality rate of 460 deaths per 100,000 live births. In addition to highlighting disparities, we were looking for a country that had strong political will to improve maternal health and one that seemed poised for success. Unfortunately, Tanzania has not come close enough to achieving what we hoped was its potential. Tanzania is like so many other countries that will not meet the Millennium Development Goal for maternal health (MDG5). In fact, the only African country that’s on track to meet MDG5 is Egypt.
We haven’t given up hope. Since 2012 we have been working in partnership through the initiative Saving Mothers, Giving Life, which is focused on significantly reducing maternal mortality in four districts each in Uganda and Zambia. While EMC’s specific focus has been to address the distance barriers in these two countries, SMGL has a far more comprehensive plan in place and we have already seen substantial reductions in maternal deaths. In fact, at an event last month, announcing SMGL’s Annual Report, it was revealed that maternal deaths went down by 30% in the four districts in Uganda and in Zambia where we’re working. Maternal deaths at the facility level went down by 35%. We’re thrilled with the progress to date and looking forward to taking these results further.
Over the next several weeks we will be gathering stories and photos from all over the Continent. We’ll be sharing them on our blog and Social Media platforms so you can better understand the scope of the problem and learn about some of the solutions our friends and colleagues are implementing on the ground.
We hope that as we travel through these next couple of months you’ll be asking, “What can I do?” Check back later this month and we’ll be at the ready with some hands-on ways you can help.
