maternal health Archives - Humanosphere

maternal health

Saving newborn lives with a cardboard box |

: BBC

It’s a safe bet. Sending cardboard boxes to poor countries will be the next big global child health initiative.

The BBC reports today on the history and current use of boxes as newborn beds in Finland. The program started as a form of support for low-income families. In 1949 the government decided to offer mothers money or the box ‘o goods as long as they make a visit to a doctor or pre-natal clinic by the 4th month of pregnancy.

The use of cardboard boxes as child beds in Finland has persisted in popularity for nearly 75 years thanks to this government providing families with these boxed-up maternity packages. The parents are given the option to take 140 euros in cash or a box filled with baby needs. The package includes goodies such outdoor gear for the cold Finnish winters, bedding and diapers. 95% of families choose the box. Then they use it as a crib.

Yes, the cardboard device that brought endless entertainment to cats and imaginative children alike, is also a great bed. And experts claim it reduces infant mortality.

Families not only got stuff (or cash) for going to the doctor, but Finland established a highly successful program that improved maternal and child health.

It proved to be an important step in transforming a country that saw 65 out of every 1,000 children die in the 1930′s to 3 out of every 1,000 by 2011. One of the lowest rates in the world. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Health, BBC, Box, Cardboard Box, child health, children, Dumbo, Finland, girls, Infant mortality, maternal health, maternal-mortality, Mothers, women

April 3, 2013 | 12:30 PM | By Tom Paulson |

Nature Conservancy saving Tanzanian mothers & kids to save chimps |

: On Tanzania’s Lake Tanganyika, Nature Conservancy sees human health as integral to ecological health.; Nature Conservancy

Three years ago, David Banks went to a remote community in Tanzania to enlist the residents in ongoing efforts aimed at protecting the endangered chimpanzee population in the region.

: David Banks; Nature Conservancy

“Frankly, we got nowhere with that,” said Banks.

Banks is director of the Africa program for the Nature Conservancy, one of the world’s leading environmental organizations (America’s largest such group) focused for most of its 60 years on buying parcels of land to preserve them from humanity’s frequently harmful activities.

“Nobody wanted to talk about chimpanzees,” said Banks. “They wanted to talk about problems with health care, especially concerning childbirth and reproductive health issues.”

It was one of those Eureka! experiences, he said, which launched an entirely new strategy for the environmental organization made manifest in a project on and around Tanzania’s massive Lake Tanganyika known as Tuungane (“Let’s Unite” in Kiswahili). Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, child health, chimpanzees, David Banks, Elizabeth Gray, Lake Tanganyika, maternal health, Nature Conservancy, Tanzania, wildlife

January 31, 2012 | 10:47 AM | By Tom Paulson |

Seattle’s Party with a Purpose is on again, as ‘Agency’ |

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: Global health is sexy.

At least in Seattle. The best evidence of this perhaps has been the annual Party with a Purpose, a celebration sponsored by the Washington Global Health Alliance and lavishly funded by donors like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Boeing and others. This year, the party’s name is changing to Agency.

Why? Here’s what the artists formerly known as Partying Purposefully say:

“Agency means taking action on behalf of others. Agency is founded in the belief that focusing the power of young adults for the betterment of a single global health cause, even just for one night, can lead to world-changing progress.”

Aimed primarily at the younger set, the idea behind this event is to combine a spectacular, posh night out with educational and fund-raising activities devoted to a particular issue in global health. Organizers bravely launched the event with a focus on diarrhea and last year took up tuberculosis.

This year, the party is July 14 and they will focus on a University of Washington organization, Health Alliance International, working with mobile phones to improve maternal and child health.

Here’s a video pitch from lead organizer Kristen Eddings:

Announcing Agency from WGHA on Vimeo.

Note: Some have raised questions about the actual impact of these celebrations, if not the conflicting message they send — as I noted to much consternation last year. Hey, don’t shoot the messenger!

What I can say in defense of the idea of partying about diseases of poverty is it’s a heck of a lot better than ignoring these issues.

So party on!

A word to the wise: These events have sold out both times so if you want to go, better get your tickets as soon as they go on sale. I’m told it will be sometime in April.

FILED UNDER: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Boeing, diarrhea, maternal health, Party with a Purpose, tuberculosis, Washington Global Health Alliance

August 25, 2011 | 10:43 AM | By Tom Paulson |

GlobalPost: Obama’s Global Health Initiative shuns abortion services |

The online international news organization GlobalPost has been taking an in-depth look at the Obama Administration’s Global Health Initiative (GHI) as part of its new endeavor, Global Pulse.

Managed and sometimes written by John Donnelly, one of the best global health journalists out there, I dare say the Global Pulse series is probably the most comprehensive, on-the-ground look at what the Administration is doing to fight disease in the developing world.

Here’s one of the their latest posts, by Hanna Ingber Win entitled GHI’s Missing Piece in Nepal, about the problems caused by the ongoing prohibition of U.S. foreign aid funding of abortion services.

Hanna Ingber Win, Global Post

Win opens her post:

LAMAHI, Nepal – United States President Barack Obama set up the Global Health Initiative to take a more comprehensive approach to improving health care in developing nations. In particular, his administration has given great weight to saving the lives of women and to supporting countries’ priorities in health care.

But there’s one exception: abortion.

In Nepal, that exclusion is in plain view, and many say the lack of support disregards evidence that safe abortions can save women’s lives. Nearly all experts here — with the notable exception of those employed by the U.S. government — publicly state that the best way to improve maternal health is by offering a wide range of services that includes more awareness about and access to safe abortion.

FILED UNDER: Health, abortion, Global Health Initiative, Global Pulse, maternal health, Nepal, Obama Administration

May 16, 2011 | 8:00 AM | By Tom Paulson |

World Health Assembly opens to Taiwan outrage, smallpox debate, speeches by Bill Gates and Muhammad Yunus’ arch-enemy |

WHO

World Health Organization

The World Health Assembly opens today in Geneva for week-long confab on what to do about global health.

I’ve not attended one of these meetings, which sets priorities for the World Health Organization, but from a distance it always looks like kind of a mess. A well-intentioned mess maybe but a mess nonetheless, partly because almost everything under the sun is allowed a place on the agenda. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Health, Politics, Bill Gates, cell phones, maternal health, microfinance, polio, smallpox, World Health Assembly, World Health Organization

March 25, 2011 | 12:09 PM | By Tom Paulson |

Why is mental illness so low on the global health agenda? |

Flickr, by Dierk Schaefer

Seattle recently hosted a big international meeting in which many of the world’s leaders in the fight to improve health met to parse data, debate statistical methods and struggle toward consensus aimed at informing the global health agenda.

Given this focus on data, are the biggest contributors to the global burden of disease also getting the most attention and resources?

Consider two major causes of death and disability worldwide — maternal mortality and mental illness.

Today, the international community, or at least the global health community, has made reducing the number of maternal deaths and complications in childbirth worldwide a top priority. The Gates Foundation has made this a primary mission of its global health program. This priority, which really targets both mothers and children, represents two of the UN’s eight Millennium Development Goals.

Maternal health is wisely regarded as a critical, high-value goal for global health because of the important (and not always measurable) magnified benefits to a family and community that come from focusing on women’s reproductive health and the health of newborns.

Yet, surprisingly, mental illness actually kills and maims more young mothers worldwide.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Health, Science, Alan Lopez, Chris Murray, Debra Kaysen, health metrics, Jane Simoni, maternal health, mental health, mental illness, Shannon Dorsey, suicide, Theo Vos, Vikram Patel

March 9, 2011 | 12:16 PM | By Tom Paulson |

Melinda Gates urges Congress not to cut foreign aid, to save lives |

Chris Kleponis, AFP/Getty Images

Melinda Gates

Melinda Gates, in Washington, D.C. today for the CARE Women’s Conference, called Congress not to cut foreign aid and also announced a new project, the Grand Challenge for Development: Saving Lives at Birth.

The Gates Foundation is among those asking Congress not to cut foreign aid.

The new initiative is aimed at supporting efforts, many of them paid for by U.S. taxpayers, aimed at saving mothers and babies’ lives in poor countries.

The Gates Foundation new, $50-million “grand challenge” announced by Melinda is focused on preventing maternal deaths and improving child survival. It is a collaboration with the U.S. Agency for International Development, the governments of Norway and Canada, the World Bank and others.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and USAID administrator Rajiv Shah (a former Gates Foundation program manager) also spoke. You can watch the press conference here.

And for more info re the gist of Melinda’s speech at the CARE conference, you can read her philanthropy blog post here.

FILED UNDER: Politics, childbirth, foreign aid, maternal health, Melinda Gates, Rajiv Shah, USAID

September 17, 2010 | 10:08 AM | By Tom Paulson |

Educating Mothers Saves Children’s Lives |

It’s perhaps no surprise to find that better-educated mothers do better at improving the health of their children, but it may surprise some to see how much of a difference this can make — and that it matters much more than economic gain.

IHME

Child Mortality vs Maternal Education, Nicaragua

Between 1970 and 2009, mortality in children under age 5 dropped from 16 million to 7.8 million annually worldwide. Seattle researchers who studied this phenomenon in 175 countries report today in the Lancet that more than half of this reduction in child mortality (51 percent) can be attributed to improvements in education among women of reproductive age.

To the right is just one of their “scatterplots” for Nicaragua (go to their paper to get more info re the details) showing quite dramatically how child mortality plummets as maternal education rises — even if GDP per capita declines. Continue reading →