“This is a unique moment—a crisis that has demanded action for decades and is now getting the attention it deserves,” said U.S. Representative Lauren Underwood (D-IL-14) at a recent event on maternal health and disparities hosted at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health. The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate among high-income countries and for every maternal death, there are 70 “near-misses.” It is important to take a “life-course” approach to address this issue from a policy perspective, said Underwood.

“Midwifery is a fix, it is not an add-on,” said Franka Cadée, President of the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) at the Nairobi Summit on ICPD25. The World Health Organization designated 2020 the Year of the Nurse and the Midwife in recognition of the invaluable contributions of these two professions.  To meet the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, midwives and nurses must be valued and utilized as essential members of the health workforce.  Increased utilization of skilled midwives will also help countries achieve universal health coverage and improve access to sexual and reproductive health services, two key actions from the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).

We’ve got a crisis impacting our mothers and a crisis impacting our babies, said Dr. Lisa Waddell, Senior Vice President of Maternal Child Health and NICU Innovation and Impact Deputy Medical Director at the March of Dimes, at a recent Wilson Center event launching the Maternal Health Initiative’s CODE BLUE series, developed in partnership with EMD Serono, a business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. She was referring to non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which impact maternal health in the United States and globally. NCDs kill 18 million women of reproductive age each year, accounting for two in every three deaths among women.

“As a leader in providing global humanitarian aid, the United States must be a leader in protecting all aid recipients,” said Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA-6) at a recent event on Capitol Hill about gender-based violence in humanitarian settings. A violation against human rights, gender-based violence (GBV) is deeply rooted in gender inequality. It’s a global phenomenon that involves sexual, physical, and/or psychological violence, including child marriage, female genital mutilation, and other harmful practices.

“Non-communicable diseases have been the leading cause of death for women for at least the past 30 years but are often underreported and undertreated,” said Priya Kanayson, Policy and Advocacy Manager at NCD Alliance at a recent Wilson Center event on the impact of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) on maternal health. The event marked the official launch of the Maternal Health Initiative’s CODE BLUE series, developed in partnership with EMD Serono, a business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. Globally, in 2018, 73 percent of deaths among women were due to NCDs, amounting to 18 million women of reproductive age dying per year due to NCDs. The compounding effects of NCDs complicate women’s experiences in many unseen ways, and the rise and gravity of NCDs pose a growing and often overlooked challenge to maternal health worldwide.

The Nairobi Summit on ICPD25 was an opportunity for the global community to re-commit to the unfinished objectives of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development’s (ICPD) Programme of Action and accelerate the progress to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

The Nairobi Summit on ICPD25 came a quarter century after the landmark International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) was held in Cairo in 1994. Pledges made 25 years ago by 179 countries recognized that human rights, including reproductive rights, were fundamental to development and population concerns. A rigorous Programme of Action was created to reduce maternal deaths, ensure access to family planning, and protect women and girls from gender-based violence, including female genital mutilation and child marriage.