Protecting the Most Vulnerable
Natural disasters, poverty, conflict and social unrest threaten the most vulnerable in a community with mothers and children often the first to face the consequences. That gives a special urgency to restoring and supporting the services that keep mother and child healthy even in extreme circumstances:
- Make sure that the local maternal and child health center has a power source after a storm to help ensure safe deliveries.
- Deliver emergency medicine and medical supplies to replace those lost in a disaster.
- Train health workers at a local health center to strengthen key skills or add new ones that identify potential risks and provide quality care for mothers and newborns.
- Set up a temporary facility until a damaged center can be repaired, or extra medical staff to help during the crisis.
- Provide something as basic as clean water, which a local health center in an extremely poor region may lack.
- Support community health workers and leaders with resources as the first line of health in a crisis.
- Help build a road to health equity and fundamentally reduce the disparity in quality health care access which is often deadly. In maternal care in the U.S., for example, Black women are 3 times as likely to die from a maternal cause as white women.
Power, supplies, staff support, water, local community involvement, and equal health care access are all important to a mother’s health. Continue on to read more about four places where #Health4Mom has taken a big step forward.
