Motherhood & Mortality

Heather Armstrong of dooce.com has been one of my favorite bloggers for a long time.  She recently returned from Bangladesh to a flurry of nasty things being said about her, both in the Guardian and by certain choice members on twitter (I'm sure there are plenty more, I just stopped looking).  I think what's being said about her is pretty atrocious; she's just trying to raise some awareness about issues in other countries that need our attention, and all she is guilty of is using her HUGE following to do exactly that: RAISE AWARENESS!!

OK, now that I'm off the soapbox on that one...

What she, along with Christy Turlington, did bring my attention to (I sort of already knew this from nursing school, but it's not hammered home enough) is that the United States has one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates (particularly among women of color) IN THE WORLD!  And we're a first world country, people!!

Amnesty International created this graphic to raise awareness and I'm going to repost it because I think it should be plastered everywhere.  This is something that needs attention, and we need to work to correct it.  Mothers in the country should not be dying from pregnancy and the things that follow it.  It's simply not good enough.  We need better care.

You can read all about it in this article here.

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Graphic courtesy of Amnesty International