There was not an aeroplane crash yesterday. But 1,500 pregnant and newly delivered pregnant women did die yesterday. Because 1,500 women die every day in childbirth, so no newspaper reports it, no televisions cover the story. These women died because they did not have safe care when they were pregnant and when they delivered their babies. They died of infection, a long labour, high blood pressure, unsafe abortion and bleeding.
Women dying, or being damaged unnecessarily by childbirth is tragic enough.
But women are mothers too. When a woman dies or suffers in childbirth, her baby dies or suffers too and her other children have little chance of surviving. This is the first time that CHD has covered maternal health. We hope you agree that, for a child to be healthy, she or he needs a healthy mother. A child's chances of being well fed educated, and given good health care all depend on the mother.