Since 1987, the number of women dying during pregnancy and delivery has dropped by 43 percent, saving hundreds of thousands of women’s lives—and changing the lives of their families—around the world. “Our achievement in making maternal mortality an injustice that needs to be recognized by health ministers, by heads of state, by heads of agencies, has been, I think, the single greatest achievement of the Safe Motherhood Initiative” since it began 30 years ago, said Ann Starrs, President and CEO of Guttmacher Institute, at a Wilson Center event marking the anniversary of this important effort.

The burden of care—the time, energy, and costs of caring for other people—is growing, and women shoulder the heaviest load. This burden can have negative consequences for businesses, too, as it affects the health and productivity of workers, as well as economic growth. At a recent Wilson Center Ground Truth Briefing, four leading experts discussed the ways in which progressive policies could help balance the burden of care to increase economic productivity and benefit both employers and employees.

If women have non-communicable diseases (NCDs)—like cancer and diabetes—“at the time of pregnancy, [it] can hugely impact future generations,” said Adya Misra the associate editor of PLOS One at a recent event hosted by the Maternal Health Task Force (MHTF) to mark the launch of the fifth MHTF-PLOS collection, Non-Communicable Diseases and Maternal Health Around the Globe. “If we do not address NCDs in a maternal health continuum of care, we will, for so many issues, be short changing the progress we have seen [in maternal health] because NCDs are on the rise,” said Katja Iversen, president and CEO of Women Deliver. 

“All or most of the children living in these communities are by nature vulnerable,” said Melanie Yahner of Save the Children at a recent Wilson Center event on the sexual, reproductive, and maternal health of urban adolescents. Given that half of the global population living in urban areas today is under the age of 25, addressing the health needs of adolescents living in cities has become critical. “Who is shaping their norms and practices?” said Yahner. “How do we develop and adapt interventions that are meaningful for their needs?”

Over the last 30 years, the world has seen a 44 percent decrease in maternal mortality. At the same time, safe motherhood has evolved from an often neglected component of maternal and child health programs to a fundamental element of the global health agenda, leading to improved women’s health and rights. These advancements are, in large part, due to the 1987 establishment of the Safe Motherhood Initiative. To help celebrate the 30^th anniversary of the Safe Motherhood Initiative, Dot Mom asked leaders in the field to reflect on the most impactful intervention of last 30 years. Join us at the Wilson Center on Friday, December 8, 1-5 p.m., to discuss these interventions—and those to come in the next 30 years.

To prevent maternal mortality, we need new approaches to this very old problem. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)’s Midwifery Programme, which operates in 120 countries, recently launched an innovative tool to improve training for maternal health workers. Dot-Mom, the column of the Maternal Health Initiative on New Security Beat, recently spoke with Geeta Lal, global coordinator for the Midwifery Programme, about the challenges of developing innovations in maternal health and new projects on the horizon for UNFPA. 

“Resilience means the ability to cope and move ahead,” said Joan Dalton, the gender lead at THINK Liberia during the second session in a series of conversations on resilience and health at the Wilson Center. As conflicts, epidemics, and natural disasters increasingly leave global health systems vulnerable to devastation, it is important to build resilient health systems through interventions that support community resilience, agreed global health experts at the panel event co-hosted by CARE and the Maternal Health Initiative.