For Mothers' Sake

Perhaps there is no better day to start my Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) Summer Fellowship blog than today -- Mother's Day. Unlike most Mother's Days, this year, I am not home enjoying my mother's heavenly hugs (they truly are divine--really the best hugs in the world!). I love this woman dearly, but I could not be home to celebrate with her and all the other special moms in our lives this year.

Happy Mother's Day to all moms, including
my lovely mother, Hardev Kaur Singh!

Instead, this Mother's Day, I'm celebrating moms in a different way. Sitting in Geneva, Switzerland, excited to begin my internship with the World Health Organization's (WHO's) Emergency and Essential Surgical Care (EESC) Programme in the morning, I celebrate by beginning a deeper reflection on what it takes to keep mothers and their families healthy and safe in today's world. 

Every minute, one woman dies from pregnancy-related causes. In developing countries, where women are about 36 more likely to suffer from pregnancy-related complications than in developed countries, the leading causes of pregnancy-related death among women are bleeding, infection, high blood pressure, unsafe abortion, and obstructed labor, all of which have simple, life-saving, and cost-effective treatments. For each woman that dies, 20 to 50 more experience debilitating birth injuries, like obstetric fistula, leading to disability and stigmatization. Too many women and mothers that need life-saving and essential emergency and surgical care and many babies with congenital anomalies that need definitive surgical care in many low and middle income countries do not get it due to either hospitals lacking appropriately skilled health workers or health workers lacking appropriately functioning equipment. Those health systems fail in providing mothers essential care and services; in failing our mothers, they fail us all.

Even though it is recognized as an essential component of primary care and critical to achieving Millennium Development Goals, including MDG 5 to improve maternal health, surgery continues to be an underfunded and neglected service on the global health agenda. Aiming to reduce death and disability due to pregnancy-related complications, domestic violence, road traffic accidents, trauma and injury, burns, falls, disasters, and other surgical conditions, the WHO EESC Programme works to overcome common misconceptions about global health and surgery and improve care for women by strengthening and supporting health systems in low and middle income countries.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to help advance this important work while interning with the WHO. I would especially like to thank the Women's Leadership Board and the WAPPP at the Harvard Kennedy School for all their support; thank you for making it possible for me to promote and advance EESC, women's health, and safe motherhood for all women, locally and globally, at the WHO this summer.