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Mothers Day, every day
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03/11/09 12:58 PM ET
No matter what your political philosophy is, everyone can agree that motherhood should be safe. Yet, every minute of every day a woman dies of complications arising from pregnancy or childbirth. And, the devastation of her death stretches far beyond her family, threatening the health, stability and security of her community and nation.
That is why we have joined with the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, CARE and a distinguished bipartisan advisory committee chaired by former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala to launch “Mothers Day Every Day: The Campaign for Healthy Moms and Newborns.”
Our purpose is bold but achievable. We are calling for greater U.S. leadership to accelerate progress to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of women and newborns around the world. In doing so, we recognize the profound importance of every mother every day.
The good news is we know what must be done to save women’s lives. In places where women have access to quality healthcare before, during and after childbirth, almost all of them survive. But in the developing world, two out of five women give birth with no skilled healthcare attendant, and they are vulnerable to uncontrolled bleeding, infections, and other conditions that would require very little medical attention to identify and correct.
In developing nations, a woman’s lifetime risk of dying in childbirth is as high as one in seven. But even here in the United States a woman’s lifetime risk of dying in childbirth is an astonishing one in 4,800, far worse than the average of one in 8,000 for all industrialized countries and resulting in the U.S. being ranked 41st in the world in protecting the life of pregnant women and new mothers.
We know firsthand the good that comes of high-profile U.S. leadership to tackle the longstanding challenges that threaten global health and economic growth. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is widely respected as the core and catalyst for the six-fold increase between 2001 and 2006 in global contributions to HIV prevention and treatment programs.
Even more significant are the results. Experts cite programs, including PEPFAR and the Global Fund, that provided anti-retroviral medications to 3 million people in developing countries as the reason for the first decline in the number of people dying from AIDS since the epidemic commenced in 1981.
The U.S. must also be a global leader on maternal health. The international community has arrived at a consensus on proven success strategies. World leaders have repeated pledges to tackle the problem — the most recent commitment being United Nations Millennium Development Goal No. 5 to reduce maternal mortality by 75 percent by 2015. But we lose as many women in childbirth today as we did in the 1980s. Globally, maternal mortality decreased by less than 1 percent per year between 1990 and 2005, and there has been less progress towards MDG No. 5 than any of the other goals.
We have seen the benefits of providing assistance. Skilled care at birth and emergency obstetric care save the lives of mothers and their newborns. After introducing midwives at the community level in Malaysia, maternal deaths dropped dramatically. In Sri Lanka, maternal mortality was halved in just a decade by extending health services to rural areas, training midwives and advancing obstetric care.
Unfortunately, U.S. funding for maternal health programs has been consistently declining. Not only does this jeopardize progress made to reduce child mortality, it undermines investments to eradicate extreme poverty.
Giving women the chance at a healthy pregnancy and safe childbirth helps them play their pivotal role contributing to the health, self-sufficiency, economic growth and peaceful sustainability of their families, communities and nations. We can ill-afford the tragic, cascading consequences of maternal mortality, and the United States must lead the way to ensure every woman’s access to lifesaving care during pregnancy and childbirth. Only then will we celebrate Mothers Day every day.
Capps is vice-chairwoman of the Health Subcommittee on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and has been designated by the Speaker to lead the congressional effort on reducing maternal mortality. Dybul served as the United States global AIDS coordinator, leading the implementation of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) under President George W. Bush. For more information, visit www.mothersdayeveryday.org
That is why we have joined with the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, CARE and a distinguished bipartisan advisory committee chaired by former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala to launch “Mothers Day Every Day: The Campaign for Healthy Moms and Newborns.”
Our purpose is bold but achievable. We are calling for greater U.S. leadership to accelerate progress to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of women and newborns around the world. In doing so, we recognize the profound importance of every mother every day.
The good news is we know what must be done to save women’s lives. In places where women have access to quality healthcare before, during and after childbirth, almost all of them survive. But in the developing world, two out of five women give birth with no skilled healthcare attendant, and they are vulnerable to uncontrolled bleeding, infections, and other conditions that would require very little medical attention to identify and correct.
In developing nations, a woman’s lifetime risk of dying in childbirth is as high as one in seven. But even here in the United States a woman’s lifetime risk of dying in childbirth is an astonishing one in 4,800, far worse than the average of one in 8,000 for all industrialized countries and resulting in the U.S. being ranked 41st in the world in protecting the life of pregnant women and new mothers.
We know firsthand the good that comes of high-profile U.S. leadership to tackle the longstanding challenges that threaten global health and economic growth. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is widely respected as the core and catalyst for the six-fold increase between 2001 and 2006 in global contributions to HIV prevention and treatment programs.
Even more significant are the results. Experts cite programs, including PEPFAR and the Global Fund, that provided anti-retroviral medications to 3 million people in developing countries as the reason for the first decline in the number of people dying from AIDS since the epidemic commenced in 1981.
The U.S. must also be a global leader on maternal health. The international community has arrived at a consensus on proven success strategies. World leaders have repeated pledges to tackle the problem — the most recent commitment being United Nations Millennium Development Goal No. 5 to reduce maternal mortality by 75 percent by 2015. But we lose as many women in childbirth today as we did in the 1980s. Globally, maternal mortality decreased by less than 1 percent per year between 1990 and 2005, and there has been less progress towards MDG No. 5 than any of the other goals.
We have seen the benefits of providing assistance. Skilled care at birth and emergency obstetric care save the lives of mothers and their newborns. After introducing midwives at the community level in Malaysia, maternal deaths dropped dramatically. In Sri Lanka, maternal mortality was halved in just a decade by extending health services to rural areas, training midwives and advancing obstetric care.
Unfortunately, U.S. funding for maternal health programs has been consistently declining. Not only does this jeopardize progress made to reduce child mortality, it undermines investments to eradicate extreme poverty.
Giving women the chance at a healthy pregnancy and safe childbirth helps them play their pivotal role contributing to the health, self-sufficiency, economic growth and peaceful sustainability of their families, communities and nations. We can ill-afford the tragic, cascading consequences of maternal mortality, and the United States must lead the way to ensure every woman’s access to lifesaving care during pregnancy and childbirth. Only then will we celebrate Mothers Day every day.
Capps is vice-chairwoman of the Health Subcommittee on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and has been designated by the Speaker to lead the congressional effort on reducing maternal mortality. Dybul served as the United States global AIDS coordinator, leading the implementation of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) under President George W. Bush. For more information, visit www.mothersdayeveryday.org
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