How You Can Help Save Mothers’ Lives

3. Help educate other women. Look for women's health groups in your community that provide resources for pregnant women and back them by volunteering or contributing money. Some national organizations also focus on specific dangers during pregnancy. These include the Preeclampsia Foundation, the National High Risk Pregnancy Support Network, the HELLP Syndrome Society, and the March of Dimes.

4. Fight domestic violence. Pregnant women are at high risk for abuse. Support local domestic violence initiatives or volunteer at domestic violence shelters. To learn more, see this site from the NIH.

5. Go beyond borders. Learn what's happening to women in the rest of the world. Start with these sites: the United Nations Population Fund, the World Health Organization and Family Care International. If you want to help, the White Ribbon Alliance has a list of things you can do. To find out more about the situation in one African country, you can check out this report on Kenyan women from the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Federation of Women Lawyers.

6. Reach out to women in trouble. One of the most devastating complications of childbirth is obstetric fistula, a rupture usually caused by obstructed labor, unsafe abortion or female genital cutting (a traditional practice in some cultures). Often, the result is uncontrolled leakage of feces or urine and consequently, social ostracism. This is a problem that could be eliminated with good obstetric care. To learn more, see One by One, or the Campaign to End Fistula.

7. Become an advocate. Make sure health care for women and children is on the agenda in the presidential campaign by writing your representatives in Congress and attending town-hall meetings during the primary season. Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper asking for more coverage of maternal health issues in this country and around the world. With that kind of pressure, you can help millions of women around the world whose stories need to be told.

© 2007