Maternal May: celebrating safe birth
Maternal May
celebrating safe birth
Midwives save lives.
Many births in Ethiopia occur outside healthcare facilities, without the assistance of trained midwives.
Important progress is being made to improve maternal healthcare across the country, however maternal mortality rates are still high and too many mothers still die every year in childbirth or during pregnancy.
Without trained medical assistance, women are more likely to sustain childbirth injuries, such as obstetric fistula.
We believe every woman should be able to access the support of a trained midwife, and have choices in childbirth.
During the month of May, we celebrate the incredible work of all our maternal health partners.
How do my donations protect women in Ethiopia and prevent obstetric fistula?
By improving access to maternal health services, our partners are saving the lives of mothers and babies, preventing the childbirth injuries that are so prevalent with prolonged unassisted labour and offering women choices in childbirth.
Through their projects, they are:
- Ensuring women have access to antenatal care, trained midwives during childbirth, and care and support post-birth.
- Raising awareness of the importance of maternal healthcare and helping women access this vital service.
- Healing women, through life-transforming obstetric fistula surgery.
- Improving access to maternal healthcare in rural areas through midwife outreach projects and home visits.
- Providing maternity waiting homes within health centres so women have a safe place to stay at the end of their pregnancy where help and midwives are close by, reducing risks and complications.
- Supporting women to make informed choices about their own health and decisions about their own futures through access to sexual and reproductive health services.
Hear from two of our wonderful maternal health partners explaining more about the impact of your support…
Find out more
Video interview with midwife Indie McDowell
Indie, midwife and co-founder of Atsede Clinic shares more about their amazing work. She explains how she came to live in Ethiopia, when she first
Makda, a Maternal and Child Health Ambassador
Health centres destroyed by conflict In the Tigray region of Ethiopia, the healthcare system is struggling to recover from the aftermath of the conflict. Many
Safe motherhood: reaching more women
These brave, inspirational women who have experienced the trauma of living with fistula are determined other women should not experience the same.
Interview with midwife Atsede Kidane
“I always knew I wanted to be a midwife” Atsede, 2019 International Midwife of the Year, is co-founder and Director of Atsede Clinic, one of
“The sun is out for me and my daughter”
For 25 years, Aberash lived with the pain and isolation of obstetric fistula – until she was found by a Safe Motherhood Ambassador.
Alemnesh’s hope for the future
After prolonged labour, Alemnesh sustained a devastating childbirth injury: obstetric fistula. Read her story.
Our maternal health partners
Atsede Clinic’s ‘Midwives on the Move’ project provides home visits to pregnant women living in the mountainous terrain of the Gurage Zone. Many of the women they work with either aren’t able to travel to health facilities for antenatal appointments, or do not think they are important enough. Alongside the antenatal, delivery and postnatal care they provide, they are working to change attitudes in communities, emphasising the importance of maternal health care and empowering women to make informed decisions about their own health. Atsede’s Maternity Clinic was founded by 2019 International Midwife of the Year, Atsede Kidane, and British midwife Indie McDowell.
The Hamlin Fistula Midwifery College aims to address the shortage of midwives across Ethiopia, and to accomplish their founder Dr Catherine Hamlin’s dream of “a midwife in every village”. The college offers a BSc degree in midwifery and MSc degree in clinical midwifery. Upon graduation each midwife is posted to rural health centres, to provide quality maternal health services to thousands of women – ensuring safer births and preventing injuries like obstetric fistula.
Healing Hands of Joy’s mission is to see obstetric fistula eliminated from Ethiopia. They work to prevent this devastating childbirth injury, to find women with fistula and refer them for treatment, and to rehabilitate women who are recovering, helping them reintegrate in their community. Through their Safe Motherhood Ambassador programme, women who have been cured return to their communities to identify new cases of fistula and educate expectant mothers on safe delivery. HHOJ also works on a wider community level, hosting workshops, training religious leaders, holding film screenings and educating men and women, to raise awareness and change attitudes towards this socially-isolating condition.
Hope of Light provides obstetric fistula treatment at 3 Fistula Centres in Gondar, Jimma and Assela. The organisation was founded by Dr Ambaye WoldeMichael, a renowned fistula surgeon, who was originally trained by Dr Catherine Hamlin. HOL supplies medical supplies for fistula care, trains doctors in fistula surgery, raises awareness of fistula with health professionals and her team provides care and support for the women they treat through pre- and post-operative counselling.
Wings of Healing are providing vital medical care by re-equipping health centres damaged in conflict, restoring Maternal and Child Health Services, and running emergency medical clinics in camps for displaced people. They are also treating pregnant women, new mothers and children who are living in displacement camps and have acute malnutrition.
Watch our animation to discover more about the impact of our maternal health partners’ work…
Our impact 2023-24
642 medical professionals were trained in obstetric fistula prevention and diagnosis
244 women women living in rural areas received antenatal care through midwife home visits
13,414 pregnant women attended maternal health community information sessions
Why Ethiopiaid?
We raise funds for local Ethiopian charities to transform lives and achieve lasting change.
Our partners know the context and solutions; we listen and provide appropriate support. Growth and development are tracked in local communities using robust monitoring and evaluation. Partnerships continue as long as there’s a clear need and opportunities to make a lasting impact.
Our vision – an Ethiopia in which every person has access to quality education, healthcare and a life of dignity.
Our mission – breaking the cycle of poverty by enabling the poorest and most vulnerable and their communities to live with dignity, to build resilience and achieve real and sustainable solutions to the challenges they face.
