Samaritan’s Purse is optimistic that the $7.3 billion pledged by the member countries
of the G8 and G20 during their recent meetings in Canada, and by private donors,
will make a tremendous difference in reducing the number of deaths among women during
pregnancy and childbirth, and in reducing infant mortality throughout the developing
world.
We are pleased that Canada and other G8 countries have assumed a position of leadership
on this issue, and promised to provide money that will save the lives of millions
of people in the next five years and beyond. We hope that other members of the international
community will recognize the importance of maternal and child health and will match
the generosity of Canada and other G8 participants.
The G8 commitment comes at a critical time, as of all the Millennium Development
Goals the United Nations has established, maternal, newborn, and child health are
the furthest from reaching the desired targets (Action for Global Health annual
policy report.) The tragic statistics confirm the need to reduce maternal and child
mortality is extremely urgent.
Samaritan’s Purse is investing in women and children’s health projects with the
hope of providing spiritual encouragement and greater freedom from poverty. Along
with our local partners around the world, we are caring for marginalized women through
a variety of initiatives that address maternal health while also respecting the
sanctity of life. From training traditional birth attendants in Vietnam, to providing
pre- and post-natal care in Africa, to educating mothers about nutrition and early
childhood diseases in Bolivia, our projects are empowering women to improve their
own health and the health of their families.
Join with us to pray for the meetings this month, as Canada is uniquely positioned to provide leadership to the world in creating a global action plan to significantly and sustainably improve maternal and child health. Sign up to receive specific prayer requests in the weeks leading up to the summit, as well as occasional Samaritan’s Purse project updates. Our voices raised in prayer can make a difference.
- A woman dies from complications during childbirth every minute – about 529,000 deaths each year - the vast majority of them in developing countries. (UNICEF, 2005)
- A woman in sub-Saharan Africa has a 1-in-16 chance of dying during pregnancy or childbirth, compared to a 1-in-4,000 risk in a developed country. (UNICEF, 2005)
- Almost half of the births in developing countries take place without a skilled birth attendant. (UNICEF, 2005)
- Some 17 per cent of infants in developing countries had a low birth weight in 2003, and these babies are 20 times more likely to die in infancy. (UNICEF, 2003)
Source UNICEF
At this moment in the Phillipines, a pregnant woman is going to a health clinic for the first prenatal checkup in her family’s history. She is being seen by a midwife who has been trained to identify health risks for new mothers. She is receiving instruction on nutrition so that her baby will not have a low birth weight. She is being given immunizations to stop deadly tetanus from harming her baby. During delivery, the midwife will coach the young mother through a normal, healthy delivery, and the midwife is also trained and ready to intervene if something goes wrong.
At Samaritan’s Purse we strive to ensure that pregnant women have access to obstetric care. We have witnessed the joy of families when a healthy baby and mother come home after a birth. We have seen the sorrow of a family when a mother has been disabled or killed by an injury suffered in child birth. We know the pride when a girl graduates from primary school, increasing the likelihood that her future pregnancies will be supervised by a birth attendant and her children will be born healthy.
By supporting Samaritan’s Purse Women’s Projects, you are helping to ensure that a pregnant woman and her baby survive one of the most dangerous points in their lives: child birth.