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The White Ribbon Alliance: Making pregnancy and childbirth safe for all women and newborns

Did you know that over half a million women die as a result of pregnancy related complications each year, leaving an estimated 2 million children homeless?  It seems incredible when we live in an age of such advanced medical knowledge that so many women could be losing their lives in this way.  One of our Kidz Things members has brought to my attention the plight of an inspirational charity called The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood (WRA).  This organisation is “an international coalition bound together by a common goal: to ensure that pregnancy and childbirth are safe for all women and newborns in every country around the world.”

The White Ribbon Alliance was launched ten years ago and currently has members in 140 countries.  WRA is working to create a world where [1] :

• It is a woman’s* basic human right to achieve optimal health care throughout pregnancy and childbirth for herself and her newborns.
• Women are empowered to demand quality, safe and respectful motherhood services and to help other women to do the same.
• Women and newborns have access to essential and life-saving motherhood services and information.
• Women and men come together as active members in the safe motherhood movement, with the knowledgeable to make decisions that promote safe motherhood within their own families and communities.
• Communities work together to address the effects of poverty, HIV/AIDS, armed conflict, violence against women and children, and gender inequities on safe motherhood.
• Governments set policies in collaboration with women, their communities and other stakeholders to implement programs in support of safe motherhood.
*This includes all women of childbearing age.

The WRA knows the solution to saving the lives of the women and babies who are adding to these horrendous mortality statistics: ‘trained health workers are key to preventing maternal deaths. But they must be well trained, paid, supervised and supported by a health system which can quickly provide obstetric care in emergencies. All women – especially the poor and excluded – deserve quality professional care, without barriers of cost’ [2] .  The only way to provide this necessary health care is by raising the money needed to support these requirements.

Million Mums is a campaign that was launched by the WRA on Mother’s Day of this year.  The aim of this initiative is to sign up a million people and raise a million pounds to help prevent women from dying needlessly during pregnancy and childbirth. 

To coincide with the G8 summit in Italy this month, the WRA launched a short graphic film to highlight the lack of attention given by global leaders to the numbers of women dying giving birth around the world each year.  To watch it on You Tube, click here.

Additionally, the WRA delivered a petition to the leaders at the G8 summit [3] .  Many celebrities showed their support for this WRA petition by speaking out on their behalf.  In a press release [4] made in advance of the G8, Gwyneth Paltrow, an avid supporter, said:

“It is one of the great scandals facing our generation. While we are worrying about rising taxes, there are women dying in childbirth for the lack of a suture stitching kit which costs a couple of pounds. It’s simply no longer acceptable that we ignore this disgrace.”

For more information regarding global maternal mortality, see the WRA’s fact sheet.

To see more about The White Ribbon Alliance or the Million Mums campaign and how you can support them, please see their websites:

http://www.whiteribbonalliance.org
http://www.millionmums.org

Author: Claire for Kidz Things
July 2009

References

1. Source: http://www.whiteribbonalliance.org/about.cfm?a0=mission
2. Source: http://www.whiteribbonalliance.org/Resources/Documents/G8BirthAtlasflyer.pdf
3. For more news on the G8 petition, go to : http://www.whiteribbonalliance.org/emailnews/2009_0720.htm
4. Press release for the G8 summit petition: http://www.whiteribbonalliance.org/Resources/Documents/2009_g8_pressrelease.pdf