the silent statistic…

Visualize an entire plane filled with pregnant women. Now imagine that plane crashing and killing everyone on board on a weekly basis.

Do you think this would make the news?

What doesn’t make the news is that approximately one woman dies per second from ‘maternal mortality’, death caused by childbirth-related complications. It is estimated that 1500 women around the world die each day. And these are just the ‘reported’ cases.

It is estimated that over 50% of the deaths go unreported.

That means that there are over 1 million women dying each year…not just the ‘reported’ 529,000 deaths.

We don’t hear about it because it rarely happens North America, or any other westernized country for that matter. And it’s because of this, that it is called a ‘silent statistic.’

Because of my research and writing skills, I was asked to background research for a documentary that was being filmed in Uganda with the lovely Shenilla Abdula and amazing Bruno Tore.

The film, titled, Eddibu (The Gap), ended up being an Official Selection in the Montreal World Film Festival in September 2007.

For more information refer to: World Health Organization or Unicef.

So what can you do to help?

Save the Mothers and White Ribbon Alliance are two great organizations already set in place to help reduce the number of pregnancy-related deaths.

Do what you will – donate, get more information, volunteer, get the word out.