Caroline Flint attended the Parliamentary Mum’s Café, created by The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe , to mark International Women’s Day to highlight the hundreds of thousands of pregnant women who continue to die and suffer in childbirth.
Caroline Flint said, “Now is the chance to make a remarkable difference for women in poor countries. We can save lives by providing urgently needed health services for women, including health workers and family planning. The UK Government has promised to act – it is vital this money is delivered now before more women are needlessly lost. If we look after mothers, we look after the world. It is mothers who make sure children are fed, loved, educated, vaccinated, women help build stable societies.”
The UK committed to provide an annual average of £740 million for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health from 2010 to 2015 to save the lives of at least 50,000 women in pregnancy and childbirth, 250,000 newborn babies and enable 10 million couples to access modern methods of family planning. This week, Caroline Flint pledged to play her part to ensure the UK government lives up to its commitment on Maternal Health.
Global figures show that approximately 358,000 women die each year from pregnancy and childbirth and between 10 and 20 million suffer long term illnesses and injury. Yet the majority of deaths could be prevented with essential maternity basic health care services, including family planning services.
Notes to Editors:
Investment in health care for women works. The chance of a women dying in Sierra Leone from pregnancy related causes was 1 in 8 in 2005. It is now 1 in 21.
In 1910, when International Women’s Day was first created, 355 women per 100,000 live births, died as a direct result of childbirth or pregnancy-related causes in England and Wales. Today in the UK the number of maternal deaths stands just under 12 per 100,000. It is through investments in health care that we can change the course of history for women in the developing world.
To read more about the campaign for women and babies’ health, go to www.carolineflintdonvalley.com/
Find out more about the campaign at www.whiteribbonalliance.org.
PICTURE SHOWS: Caroline Flint MP at the Parliamentary Mum’s Café