Tuesday, March 12 ‘Raising Awareness for Safe Pregnancy’

Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, and supermodel Liya Kebede appeared on The Today Show this morning to discuss the White Ribbon Alliance - an international coalition that promotes awareness of safe pregnancy for women around the world.   Every minute a woman dies of pregnancy-related complications throughout the world. It appears that governments aren’t focused on the most important UN Millennium development goal, which currently is goal number 5: ‘maternal health.’  These women stressed the importance of supporting the White Ribbon Alliance, which aids local governments in increasing accountability in developing countries to change healthcare and provide increased maternal care.  Currently in Ethiopia, 70-80% of women are giving birth unassisted.

Perhaps I don’t agree with all of their praise of the American healthcare system - particularly related to maternal services - but as Americans it’s important that we don’t grow egocentric and that we really focus on the global issue of maternal health which at minimum requires