Contributor Posts

By: Kate Walton, Health Specialist, Kinerja, Indonesia Last week, I had the great privilege of attending the first-ever Global Maternal Newborn Health Conference (GMNHC) in Mexico City. During a panel on midwifery around the world, I presented on a…

By: Abhishek Bhartia, Director, Sitaram Bhartia Institute of Science and Research, New Delhi “We discussed this internally but don’t feel I have the bandwidth to travel to Mexico,” I wrote to Sue Gullo, director of the Institute for Healthcare…

By: Jody Lori, Associate Dean for Global Affairs & Director of the WHO/PAHO Collaborating Center, University of Michigan The Maternal and Newborn Health Conference in Mexico City was motivating, energizing, and stimulated lots of conversation…

By: Sandeep Bathala, Senior Program Associate, Maternal Health Initiative, Wilson Center Maternal mortality causes 56,000 deaths every year in India, accounting for 20 percent of maternal deaths around the world. Women who are born into the lower…

By: Sandeep Bathala, Senior Program Associate, Maternal Health Initiative, Wilson Center Obstetric fistula is a devastating childbirth injury caused by prolonged obstructed labor. It can lead to incontinence and infection, social stigmatization as…

By: Kelsey Holt, Senior Project Manager, Women and Health Initiative, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Pregnant women who do not wish to—or aren’t able to—carry pregnancies to term have been largely absent in discussions at the GMNHC in…

By: Kate Ramsey, Columbia University AMDD Last week, a report of a horrifying incident in a maternity ward appeared in my email inbox. A woman was beaten by a health provider as she died on the floor while delivering in a health facility. When it…

By: Amy Boldosser-Boesch, Interim President and CEO, Family Care International The year 2015 has been one of dramatic movement for global maternal and newborn health—from the end of the Millennium Development Goals to the beginning of a universal and…

By: John Grove, Senior Program Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Lara Vaz, Senior Advisor, Save the Children “Hello, is anyone home?” asks a young woman from outside a home in Dire Dawa, wearing a T-shirt identifying her as part…

By: Sandeep Bathala, Senior Program Associate, Maternal Health Initiative, Wilson Center The feats that pregnant women perform under some of the most rudimentary conditions are sometimes unimaginable. On the first day of the Global Maternal and…