In the United States, an uncomplicated pregnancy is – more often than not — followed by an uncomplicated delivery, with the health of mom and baby considered a given, not an exception. For millions of women living in the Third World, however, the joy associated with a baby-on-the-way is tempered by the sobering reality that death will often accompany new life.
Supermodel and mom-of-two Liya Kebede — who graces the May cover of Vogue — recalls it being “so normal” to hear of women dying during childbirth in her native Ethiopia, she assumed it was a universally accepted truth.
During a Tuesday visit to The Today Show she admitted that she was surprised to learn that pregnancy in the United States is not considered a potential death sentence, however. “Not only that, [but] you have your prenatal care, your postnatal care, and when you’re delivering you have the greatest medical care you could possibly wish for,” she notes. “If you were to deliver in Ethiopia, the minute you’re pregnant you are already thinking…’Am I going to die giving birth?’”
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Her appearance was in support of The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood (WRA), an international coalition devoted to increasing public awareness of the dangers associated with pregnancy and childbirth.
So-named because white symbolizes both hope and mourning, WRA educates its 118 member countries and related member organizations through seminars and working groups, creates educational, communication and technical materials and organizes policy efforts directed at national and local governments to increase funding and programs for safe motherhood.
To that end, it recently launched the Million Mums Campaign, which itself notes that “every minute of every day, somewhere in the world, a woman dies due to pregnancy and birth-related complications.”
Liya witnessed such losses first-hand. “In Ethiopia, for example, possibly 70 to 80-percent of women deliver unassisted,” she explained, “At home, probably in a village, in a hut, [where] they have no water. So any little complication, the smallest thing, will kill the woman.” In fact, in Africa and Asia pregnancy and childbirth are the number one causes of death for women of childbearing age, killing an estimated 500,000 women each year.
Click below to read about the involvement of another supermodel mom.
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Courtesy Cookie Magazine
