Training Midwives to Save Expectant Indigenous Mothers in Mexico's Chiapas Denise Grady - The New York Times
go to original September 2, 2015

Calling the Midwife, in Chiapas (NYTimes/Yassine Bel)

Chiapas, the southernmost state in Mexico, is a mix of wonder and sadness. It is home to rain forests, Mayan ruins, waterfalls, rugged highlands — and some of the country’s highest death rates among women in childbirth.

Pregnancy and birth are not illnesses, and yet they are a significant cause of death in young women in developing countries. Globally, complications of pregnancy or delivery killed 289,000 women in 2013, almost entirely in poor countries. The toll was far worse in 1990, when more than 500,000 women died.

But the improvement in recent years falls short of goals set by the United Nations, which called for a worldwide decrease of 75 percent in maternal mortality by 2015. The death rate remains “unacceptably high,” according to the World Health Organization.

The figures are inexcusable, experts say. With proper, basic health care, nearly all deaths during pregnancy and childbirth can be prevented.

The story in Chiapas is much like that in other impoverished regions around the world. Wherever maternal deaths are high, the main reason is the same: not enough doctors, nurses and medically trained and equipped midwives to help deliver babies.

Read the rest at The New York Times

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