Maz & Kilgore

“The standard recommendation to a woman who needs medical attention is, ‘Go to the hospital’ - but in rural parts of India there are so few doctors that this is like telling her, ‘Do nothing.’ We decided to follow Gandhi’s message to go to the villages. Instead of waiting for people to come to us, we found a way to take the care to the people.“  Abhay Bang, SEARCH

More than 50% of mothers in low-income countries still give birth in the home, far from health facilities, medicines and trained professionals .

Why? These women often live in remote and inaccessible rural areas. And even if health facilities and trained professionals are within reach, many women confront insurmountable cultural and religious obstacles in accessing that healthcare and inevitably give birth at home.  Plus, their governments face significant economic challenges, made worse by the exodus of trained medical staff to rich countries.
(more…)

In some of the world’s poorest countries, women still die in pregnancy and childbirth at what is essentially the same rate as the Middle Ages. Nature seems to have given odds of around 16 to 1 of successfully making it through pregnancy and childbirth without any medical help or modern advances in hygiene. Unbelievably, women in the poorest countries still face this same risk TODAY when entering each pregnancy. (more…)