Quotes About Maternal health

Maternal health remains a staggering challenge, particularly in the developing world. Globally, a woman dies from complications in childbirth every minute.

In the world of the midwife, giving birth is a natural process, not a medical procedure.

In an industrialized country as advanced as the United States, no mother should have the fear of dying during childbirth or in the following months.

The states are not free, under the guise of protecting maternal health or potential life, to intimidate women into continuing pregnancies.

Neither left nor right has focused adequately on maternal health.

The earliest and most dramatic changes in maternal physiology are cardiovascular. These changes improve fetal oxygenation and nutrition.

about one-fifth of the cardiac output goes through the uterus at term increasing the risk from postpartum hemorrhage substantially.

Nausea is a normal but unpleasant effect of pregnancy and a really good sign that it is going well. Women who experience nausea in early pregnancy are less likely to miscarry.

In the world of maternal health, cell phone technology is being used to provide prenatal care, linking pregnant women to health care providers when they can't otherwise reach healthcare facilities.

Childbirth is normal until proven otherwise.

You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion.

Over the next few months, I set out to understand why in our country with the most expensive and advanced medical technology in the world, growing numbers of American women, disproportionately Black women, were dying as a result of pregnancy and childbirth, including African American women whose income and education should protect them.

College-educated Black mothers, for example, are more likely to die, almost die, or lose their babies than white mothers who haven't finished high school.

I have healed myself through sharing my birth story as well as others' stories in my film 'No Woman, No Cry,' and in various writings and talks about maternal health.

Besides the horror show of the birth itself, twilight sleep had some pretty nasty side effects. It produced babies who were groggy and had poor respiration. It also increased the mother's risk of bleeding out.

This is Pitocin

Although inductions have been attempted for thousands of years, in the past, they were usually done because the baby was already dead or because the mother was sick. Now they tend to be done for less pressing reasons, which may include the obstetrician's dinner reservations.* In theory, they're done only when they're best for mother or baby, but the timing of them makes it pretty clear staffing concerns are a factor as well.

But I can tell you this, without question. She took no drugs at all, except for pot, and not too much. And during her pregnancy there was no question, she was so in love with her pregnancy she would do nothing. I'd pour a glass of wine and she

When pregnant women scoop up cat litter and accidentally breathe in the particles, the parasite can find its way to their placentas. Like viruses, it can damage placental cells and cause them to commit suicide. The resulting condition, called toxoplasmosis, can lead to fetal infection, miscarriage, congenital disease, or disability later in life. This is why many pregnant women get their partners to empty the cat box for nine months.

Ina May Gaskin is the most important person in maternity care in North America, bar none.

The U.N. Population Fund has a maternal health program in some Cameroon hospitals, but it doesn't operate in this region. It's difficult to expand, because President Bush has cut funding.

Neither left nor right has focused adequately on maternal health.

The equivalent of five jumbo jets' worth of women die in labor each day, but the issue is almost never covered. The remedy? America should lead a global campaign to save mothers in childbirth. Right now the amount we Americans spend on maternal health is equivalent to less than one twentieth of 1 percent of the amount we spend on our military.

Maternal health generally gets minimal attention because those who die or suffer injuries overwhelmingly start with three strikes against them: They are female, they are poor, and they are rural. Women are marginalized in the developing world, They are an expendable commodity.