Maternal Mortality

One of the best things about working for an organisation like the RCN is that you get to meet some brilliant people undertaking some very important work.

Yesterday I visited 10 Downing Street to meet with Sarah Brown and other members of the Maternal Mortality campaign team.

Maternal Mortality is a campaign that the RCN has been proud to support and the meeting was very productive and informative. It’s only when you look at the facts surrounding maternal mortality that one realises just what an important topic it is.

Every minute of every day, a woman dies of pregnancy related complications, totalling more than half a million women each year. By the time you’ve read this blog, somewhere in the world a child has been born who will never know their mother.

When I say ‘somewhere in the world’, there’s a 99% chance that the mother will die in a developing country. In sub-Saharan Africa, a mother has a 1 in 8 chance of dying in childbirth; in Western Europe that figure is just 1 in 8000.

Almost half of all women in developing countries deliver their babies without a nurse, midwife or doctor present.

The simple truth is that these figures are an international scandal and we need real action now.

The Maternal Mortality campaign have set themselves a number of key objectives in order to ensure that this problem gets the recognition it deserves. To find out all about the campaign and what it’s calling for, visit the website - www.whiteribbonalliance.org

Please, get involved and support this incredibly important cause.