Archive for 'maternal health'
Today is Human Rights day and the last of 16 days of activism to end violence against women. Around 140 million women are living with the effects of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C). In Africa alone, there are around three million girls who are undergoing the practice of FGM/C each year. This doesn’t even include the [...]
After visiting Siavonga District (mentioned in my last post), we travelled to Monze District and then deep in to the bush to visit a remote health post at Kayola. The first leg of the journey was down 20 kilometres of rough, dusty, rock-strewn dirt track to reach Nampeyo rural health centre (a health promotion poster [...]
I am writing this sitting in Johannesburg airport on my way back from a fascinating week in South Africa, where I have been conducting a review of a UK aid supported programme on maternal and child health. The programme supports the Government of South Africa’s strong commitment to bring down its high maternal, newborn and [...]
Babies don't get to choose where, when or how they come into the world. Giving mothers the chance to make those huge decisions could make all the difference in the world. I learned just how serious birth can be when I became a mother in 2003. Suddenly my ideal birth experience became quite the opposite while [...]
As we celebrate Mother's Day, and the deadline approaches for reaching the Millennium Development Goal of reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters, it is worth considering that giving birth in some countries still remains one of the most dangerous things a woman can do. I remember once trekking with a friend in a remote mountain region [...]
I celebrated the 101st International Women's Day in the halls of the United Nations last week. I followed Twitter, and shared blogs and news stories that collectively called we women to action. When I take a step back, as I did last week, I'm reminded that the "women's rights are human rights" movement is still [...]
Of all the things I thought I'd be doing when I got the chance to go to Africa and see Red Nose Day cash being spent - mixing cement wasn't one of them. After the years I spent working on building sites before the X Factor though, I felt strangely at home when I was [...]
Population has become a dirty word. It is a word that many of my predecessors and counterparts have, some might say understandably, steered clear of for decades. That's because it is normally followed by words like 'control' and 'explosion'. It conjures images of forced euthanasia and sterilisation at one extreme or famine, poverty, disease and [...]
This month, the seven billionth human being will be born. It may be a baby boy or a baby girl, it will probably be born in the developing world, and chances are good that this baby's mother will suffer complications or even a severe birth injury like obstetric fistula. Up to 45,000 women do, every [...]
Later this year a baby will be born - probably on 31 October - and the birth will mark the moment when the world's population reaches seven billion. The birthday may be emblematic, but the demographic marker it symbolises is startlingly real - there are now twice as many people alive on earth as there were [...]
