Save The Children have posted this video from the Minute For Mothers campaign from outside the houses of Parliament in Westminster London which Annie Lennox attended and spoke at.
Every minute a mother dies giving birth and the vast majority of these deaths are preventable. The impact on the children and families left behind is imeasurable. Join Annie Lennox and Save the Children in campaigning to stop these needless deaths.
You can watch the video here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjDFHhWGuRE
This from the Save The Children Website:
Hundreds of passionate activists laid more than 3,000 white roses across Old Palace Yard opposite parliament on Friday, March 12 to represent the 3,000 pregnant women that would lose their lives over the Mother’s Day weekend – almost all preventable and often caused by complications that are routinely treated in the UK.
The Minute For Mothers event, organised by a coalition of leading charities including Save the Children, the White Ribbon Alliance, Oxfam and Amnesty International, was designed to draw attention to the fact that:
- complications in pregnancy and childbirth kill one mother, every minute, every day
- two million children every year still die on the day they are born
- many women in the developing world face as great a risk of dying in childbirth today as British mothers did 100 years ago.
Jasmine Whitbread, Chief Executive of Save the Children, was at the event and said: “It’s tragic that so many mothers will needlessly die this Mother’s Day weekend, especially when we know what’s needed to save them. It’s not just mothers’ lives that are at risk — it’s children’s too. Often newborn babies who’ve lost their mothers will die because there’s nobody to breastfeed or care for them properly as a mother would. Babies whose mums died because of eclampsia or sever malnutrition may be too small to survive.
“Without their mums, children everywhere are far more vulnerable. That’s why it’s so important that UK mums are coming together today and putting pressure on our politicians to improve maternal and child healthcare around the world.”
The charities are calling for a government commitment to increase funding for maternal and child health in developing countries. They’re also urging the UK to increase its commitment to supporting sexual and reproductive health and rights.
What we want
We want politicians to put mothers and children first.
- Make sure life-saving aid is spent on healthcare for the worlds’ poorest mums and children
- Make sure the health of the poorest mums and children is a key indicator of the effectiveness of this aid
- Help women and girls take control of their own lives, by supporting them to get an education and reducing the threat of sexual violence and abuse they face.