The maternal mortality rate in the US is 1 in 10,000. That means, it is more than likely that when a woman gives birth in the United States of America, she will live to raise her newborn child.
The maternal mortality rate in Africa is 1 in 26, meaning, that out of every 26 babies born, one of those is going to be an orphan by the time they are a day old; not to mention the number of babies who are born fatherless and those who will lose their parent(s) before reaching adulthood.
Some of these children are lucky enough to have relatives to take care of them, siblings, grandparents, or aunts/uncles who will care enough to take them into their already full home, in the poverty stricken places they find themselves. Others, are sent to fend for themselves, to try to get by, or to be raised in the local orphanage, which will most likely not take them to a life full of education and oppertunity.
This subject came to the front of my mind when I read an article on msnbc.com. It stated that the number of women dying in childbirth in Africa has not really improved since 1990, dispite an United Nations goal of reducing the maternal mortality ratio by 75 percent by the year 2015; it has only declined at a rate of less than one percent per year. In 2005, the report estimated that 536,000 women died due to complications in pregnancy or childbirth, compared to 576,000 in 1990. Not a change large enough compared to all advances in medicine in the world in those years.
This is a tragedy...I want to do my part, however small, to bring these children hope, to love them from where I am.
The maternal mortality rate in Africa is 1 in 26, meaning, that out of every 26 babies born, one of those is going to be an orphan by the time they are a day old; not to mention the number of babies who are born fatherless and those who will lose their parent(s) before reaching adulthood.
Some of these children are lucky enough to have relatives to take care of them, siblings, grandparents, or aunts/uncles who will care enough to take them into their already full home, in the poverty stricken places they find themselves. Others, are sent to fend for themselves, to try to get by, or to be raised in the local orphanage, which will most likely not take them to a life full of education and oppertunity.
This subject came to the front of my mind when I read an article on msnbc.com. It stated that the number of women dying in childbirth in Africa has not really improved since 1990, dispite an United Nations goal of reducing the maternal mortality ratio by 75 percent by the year 2015; it has only declined at a rate of less than one percent per year. In 2005, the report estimated that 536,000 women died due to complications in pregnancy or childbirth, compared to 576,000 in 1990. Not a change large enough compared to all advances in medicine in the world in those years.
This is a tragedy...I want to do my part, however small, to bring these children hope, to love them from where I am.
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