Where Life’s Start Is a Deadly Risk

The pictures that accompany this story are quite poignant.
The article hits upon the key points of unnecessary deaths in health young mothers, lack of access to healthcare, brain drain, etc...
In the maternal wards of hospitals I have seen in Africa, the conditions are quite abysmal as pointed out in this article, but also highlighted is the fact that it is unknown how many mothers die giving birth at home. I have a friend who along with his girlfriend ended up adopting a young orphaned child whose mother died in the bush of Namibia. My friends had been working in a hospital there. As per the tradition of the area, women went out in the bush to deliver their babies by themselves. They were supposed to return in 3 days. However, when the mother did not return the village elders went out and found the mother dead and the newborn barely alive.
The girl is now a healthy and beautiful 10 year old girl, living in Holland with Andre and Judy.

BEREGA, Tanzania — The young woman had already been in labor for two days by the time she reached the hospital here. Now two lives were at risk, and there was no choice but to operate and take the baby right away.

It was just before dawn, and the operating room, powered by a rumbling generator, was the only spot of light in this village of mud huts and maize fields. A mask with a frayed cord was fastened over the woman’s face. Moments later the cloying smell of ether filled the room, and then Emmanuel Makanza picked up his instruments and made the first cut for a Caesarean section.

Mr. Makanza is not a doctor, a fact that illustrates both the desperation and the creativity of Tanzanians fighting to reduce the number of deaths and injuries among pregnant women and infants.
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There are many nights like this at the hospital here, 6 miles from the nearest paved road and 25 miles from the last electric pole. It is not uncommon for a woman in labor to arrive after a daylong, bone-rattling ride on the back of a bicycle or motorcycle, sometimes with the arm or leg of her unborn child already emerging from her body.

Some arrive too late. In October, a mother who had been in labor for two days died of infection. In November and December, two bled to death. Doctors say they think that more deaths probably occur outside the hospital among the many women who try to give birth at home.

A few minutes’ walk from the hospital is an orphanage that sums up the realities here: it is home to 20 children, all under 3, nearly all of whose mothers died giving birth to them.

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The Global Perspective

Women in Africa have some of the world’s highest death rates in pregnancy and during childbirth. For each woman who dies, 20 others suffer from serious complications, according to the W.H.O.
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The women who die are usually young and healthy, and their deaths needless. The five leading causes are bleeding, infection, high blood pressure, prolonged labor and botched abortions. Maternal deaths from such causes were largely eliminated nearly a century ago in developed countries. In poor countries a mother’s death leaves her newborn at great risk of dying as well.