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News/Event Item
Millions of Mothers Lost
May 2, 2008
Once a minute, somewhere in the world, a woman dies in pregnancy or childbirth. The tragedy, says Kira Cochrane, is that most of these deaths could be prevented.
The story of Yeruknesh Mesfin's death starts on the day of her birth, in an Ethiopian village so remote that its name, Goradit, literally means "cut off". At 10 days old, Mesfin was circumcised by a local woman, and by the age of seven, with no education, she was put to work looking after her family's cattle. At 13, she was abducted and raped by a 32-year-old farmer, who married her; soon afterwards, she became pregnant. Without any medical advice during the whole nine months, she went into labour, "clutching her pillow, calling repeatedly for her mother while tears flowed down her cheeks". Her husband called for help, but the complications proved too difficult for the village's traditional birth attendant. In desperation, the men of the village carried Mesfin to the nearest hospital, where both she and her baby died. She was 15.
Mesfin's tale is one of many in Stories of Mothers Lost, a book by the White Ribbon Alliance, a worldwide movement of grassroots organisations concerned with maternal mortality. Member groups were asked to commemorate a woman in their community who had died in pregnancy or childbirth, and responses flooded in. The project was inspired by the horrendous worldwide statistics surrounding maternal mortality: the fact that a woman dies in pregnancy or childbirth each minute, which adds up to a conservative estimate of 536,000 maternal deaths each year - some believe the toll could be as high as 872,000. While one in 8,200 women in the UK dies in pregnancy or childbirth, in the poorest, most conflict-riven countries, including Niger, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, that figure rises to a stark, inexcusable, one in eight.
© 2008 IRIN
For full article, visit:
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/women/story/0,,2277551,00.html
And see video: Members of the White Ribbon Alliance, which promotes safe motherhood in Burkina Faso, show the problems women face in motherhood
category: Member Organization News : General Health News
contributed by Liza Nanni on 2 May 2008
Global :
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