Everyday Health: Every Mother Counts #Every2 Campaign: How We Celebrate Mother’s Day

The minute a baby is born, a mother is born too and with each new baby, she’s born again.

By Christy Turlington Burns, Special to Everyday Health

The minute a baby is born, a mother is born too and with each new baby, she’s born again. For me, that’s the real celebration of Mother’s Day. The moment I had my daughter, Grace, ten years ago, I was born a Mother and fell in love immediately. I was overwhelmed with joy that we had our girl and that she was healthy and with pride that I’d made it through labor the way I’d intended surrounded with support from my husband, doula, midwife and medical team. Everything about those first blissful moments is crystal clear in my memory and I’m so grateful for that because a moment later, everything changed. I had what’s called a retained placenta, which means it would not deliver the way it’s supposed to and I hemorrhaged. An obstetrician was able to control the problem quickly and though it was frightening and painful (far more painful than labor). I was one of the lucky ones.

That was the moment I was also inspired to become a maternal health advocate because if the complication I experienced had happened in another part of the world where healthcare isn’t just a moment away, I would have died. Every year, almost 300,000 women die from pregnancy and childbirth-related conditions. 90% of those are preventable. While 99% of those deaths happen in the developing world, about 800 occur right here in the US. That’s the global reach of this crisis.

That’s what motivated me to make a documentary about maternal health around the world. My documentary, No Woman, No Cry was screened at film festivals, universities and on the OWN network and with each screening, people asked, “What can I do? How can I help?” I founded Every Mother Counts in response to that question to raise awareness about the global problem of maternal mortality and to get people involved in helping find solutions. Today, we’re a 501c3 non-profit organization that’s funding grants in five countries to address issues like transportation, education and supplies to improve maternal health conditions. And every Mother’s Day, we encourage more people to support mothers around the world by engaging them in our Mother’s Day campaign.

To celebrate Mother’s Day this year, Every Mother Counts is launching the Every 2 Minutes campaign for the month of May. While we celebrate the birth of mothers in our own lives, we remember that every 2 minutes, a woman dies in pregnancy and childbirth. But it doesn’t have to be that way as 90% of those deaths are preventable. That’s why we are calling on all moms (and those who love moms) to take just 2 minutes out of their day to do 2 things to raise awareness and help moms and moms-2-be around the world.

It may sound small, but if every empowered mom did just 2 simple things to support maternal health and then urged her friends to do the same, together we would make tremendous strides towards our goal to make pregnancy and childbirth safe for every mother. 2 minutes is all it takes to show your support for a global community, the Sisterhood of Motherhood, and these small actions will make a tremendous difference for moms everywhere.

What can you do to help? Log on to our Every 2 Minutes page on our website and learn how you can:

• Watch and share our film about the birth of a mom directed by Nicole Holofcener
• Upload 2 photos of the day you were born a mom and/or the day your mom had you on our Facebook page
• Share 2 facts about maternal health on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram using the #every2 hashtag
• Donate 2 dollars (or more…we won’t mind)
• Run 2 miles (download the Charity Miles app on your smartphone and each mile run generates a 25 cent donation for EMC)
• Give 2 gifts by making 1 purchase from one of our contributing partners (like Citizens of Humanity, Jawbone, Emilie M. and more)
• Ask 2 friends to take 2 actions as well. Then make sure to “like” us on Facebook and sign up on our new and improved website to receive regular updates from Every Mother Counts going forward.

Learn more about our Mother’s Day campaign and about what you can do to help make pregnancy and childbirth safe by visiting our website.

Christy Turlington Burns spent decades working as a model and activist and after surviving her own childbirth complication, Christy directed and produced the documentary, No Woman, No Cry to raise awareness about dire maternal health conditions that impact millions of women around the world. Christy is also the author of Living Yoga: Creating A Life Practice as well as countless articles, essays and op-eds for magazines and newspapers on the subjects of global maternal health, feminism, poverty eradication and human rights.She lives in New York City with her husband, filmmaker Edward Burns, and their two children.