A Mother's Day Gift to the Women of Zambia

This past year many of us here in Zambia have been working on a project to reduce maternal mortality called Saving Mothers, Giving Life. The basic idea is to help the Zambian Ministry of Health to implement the Campaign to Accelerate the Reduction in Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA). It has been an amazing experience - working with some 20 partner organizations and all of the US Government agencies (USAID, CDC, DoD, Peace Corps, Dept of State) and the Government of Zambia Ministry of Health.

Reducing maternal mortality has been one of those public health efforts that has seemed somewhat impossible to achieve, even though we basically know what it takes - good prenatal care, access to good delivery services, and a safe blood supply (the number one killer is maternal hemorrhage). I am optimistic that this time we may be able to make progress. Right now Zambia's maternal mortality ratio is about 591 deaths per 100,000 live births (about 3,000 women each year die in child birth), compared to about 13/100,000 for the US (about 520 women total despite almost 7 times as many pregnancies in the US). I am optimistic because the folks here in Zambia are working together better than ever, and we are receiving some much needed attention from the US and Europe.

Take a look at the project, just launched this past mother's day: http://www.savingmothersgivinglife.org/about_smgl.html