A global problem: Maternal and child mortality
Every eleven seconds a pregnant woman or a newborn baby dies. Even though the number of deaths has decreased by half for children and by more than a third for mothers there are still many children and woman dying during birth worldwide.
The World Health Organization (WHO) speaks of maternal mortality if the mother dies during her pregnancy or up to 42 days after giving birth. Infant mortality, particularly neonatal mortality describes the annual number of children dying within the first months of their life.
Complications during pregnancy and childbirth are a common threat. Developing countries, however, often lack life-saving medical health care for mothers and their children. In order to reduce the maternal and infant mortality rate we are actively involved in prenatal care and obstetrics.
Comparing maternal and infant mortality: Germany, Tanzania and the Congo
Germany (80,7 million inhabitants) | Tanzania (53,5 million inhabitants) | Republic of Congo (77,3 million inhabitants) | Target agenda 2030 | |
Newborns who did not survive the first month of their life in 2017 | 1,527 (2,2 of 1.000 births) | 41,307 (21,7 of 1.000 births) | 74,288 (28,7 of 1.000 births) |
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| Mothers who died during childbirth in 2017 | 49 (7 of 100.000 births) | 9.975 (524 of 100.000 births) | 12.243 (473 of 100.000 births) | max. 70 of 100.000 births |
Birth mortality rates vary considerably worldwide. The United Nations' Agenda 2030 aims to drastically reduce maternal and neonatal mortality. With our work we want to contribute to this. Sources: Own calculations based on data from UNICEF and the CIA World Factbook
Giving birth: A challenge
Giving birth in regions of insufficient medical infrastructure poses an extreme challenge to mothers and their children. Due to the lack of adequate medical equipment, it is very difficult to provide them with the help they need. Moreover, long distances on damaged roads as well as lack of money make it extremely difficult to provide mothers and their children with medicine.
With malnutrition, labour pain, heavy bleeding or a wrong position of the child, the risk of an unsuccessful birth increases and professional care becomes even more important.
The consequences in case of death
There are more deaths in structurally weaker countries than in other regions of the world. In the worst case, neither the mother nor the child survives. In most cases, however, the mother survives.
If the mother did not survive:
- The risk of death of the newborn increases rapidly as the child cannot be cared for by the mother
- The lack of breast milk makes natural immunisation much more difficult and the baby is more susceptible to disease.
- Without a mother growing up, the child's childhood and personal development becomes very difficult.
If the baby did not survive:
Losing your child is an immense emotional burden and can lead to severe depression. Some mothers need lifelong psychological support to overcome this traumatic experience.
We support safe childbirth worldwide:
We care about the well-being of pregnant women and newborn babies
According to the United Nations the reduction of maternal and child mortality are key indicators to achieve the third goal of Agenda 2030 ("Sustainable Development Goals", SDGs): "Health and well-being for all". With our measures we strengthen prenatal care and aftercare in our project countries and aim to give women better access to obstetrics.
We are building maternity clinics and support existing health centres with the necessary medical equipment and medicines. There are not only delivery rooms in the maternity clinics, but also professionally equipped surgery rooms. In addition, we train midwives and medical staff so that mothers and their children receive comprehensive care before, during and after birth.
Furthermore, we support an adequate water supply to ensure hygienic standards in the facilities and reduce the risk of infections that can occur during and after birth.
We provide the population of the surrounding regions with information on our health facilities and particularly draw attention to our support in obstetrics.
Your donation for safe births
With your donation you support our projects in effectively reducing maternal mortality and the mortality rate of newborns.
