Midwives Save Lives

Saving children's lives can be a relatively simple thing--if you know what you are doing. The average women in the world doesn't actually know what to do when it comes time to give birth to her baby (and that's not my opinion--that's the scientific evidence). When a trained/experienced person such as a midwife attends the delivery of a baby, the baby's chances of survival (and the mother's too) are greatly increased. Yet, there are still a lot of women in the world who give birth without that kind of assistance. A study by the organization Save the Children, and reported by BBC News, suggests that:

It said if a global shortage of 350,000 midwives were met, more than one million babies a year could be saved.

Some 1,000 women and 2,000 babies died every day from easily preventable birth complications - Afghanistan was the worst place to have a baby, it said.

The report said Afghan women faced a one in 11 risk of dying from complications during pregnancy and childbirth. One in five children dies before the age of five.

Many babies in Afghanistan die because of traditional practices, such as placing them on the floor to ward off evil spirits, which can cause infection, it said.