Women’s health

Reducing maternal mortality, improving reproductive health

Pregnancy and childbirth should be occasions to celebrate life and hope. Yet, for millions of women in the developing world, pregnancy and childbirth pose major risks of disability or death. In Rwanda or Malawi, one woman out of every 35 dies as a result of pregnancy or childbirth, as compared to only one of 12,200 women dying during pregnancy or childbirth in Japan, according to UNICEF. Worldwide, nearly 350,000 needless maternal deaths orphan millions of children every year, according to the WHO. 

PIH strives to address these lethal inequalities by making treatment and prevention a top priority in the area of women's health.

We provide access to basic health services proven to lower maternal death rates: family planning, comprehensive neonatal care, adequate nutrition, medical care for childbirth and pregnancy. We also offer antiretroviral treatment for pregnant women living with HIV as a way both to improve health and prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus during childbirth.

Family planning

Family planning is among the most effective tools for reducing maternal mortality. Women who receive education and contraceptive options are more likely to delay childbearing, have fewer children and reduce their risk for obstetrical complications. Nevertheless, 50 percent of all pregnancies worldwide are unplanned or unwanted, accounting for nearly 300,000 new pregnancies every day.

Interactive Women's Health Timeline

Explore our 25 years of serving women

Women in poor communities too often lack access to family planning tools. Clinics are too far away, user fees are too high, and transportation costs are beyond their means. Making family planning available and affordable to the poor worldwide would save the lives of more than 100,000 women every year.

In Haiti, each of PIH’s clinics has a full-time nurse trained in sex education and reproductive health counseling. Staff in Haiti has been offering free condoms and contraception for over 15 years. In 2003, we began training and mobilizing community health workers who specifically promote family planning and women’s health. These ajans fanm – women's health agents in Haitian Creole – travel throughout the countryside, teaching people about sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, and contraceptive methods. They also distribute condoms and oral contraceptives and refer pregnant women to clinics. This successful model is being replicated at PIH sites in Rwanda, Malawi and Lesotho.

Skilled obstetric care for pregnancy and childbirth

Each year 52 million births occur without help from a skilled attendant in developing countries, and 35 percent of pregnant women have no contact at all with health personnel before delivery. Yet potentially fatal complications occur in 15 percent of all births. Because of this, it is critical that women deliver in or very near facilities capable of providing basic emergency obstetrical and newborn care.

At PIH’s clinics in Haiti, high-quality obstetric care for pregnancy, childbirth and emergency complications is available to all pregnant women. Each of our 12 facilities has a fully-functioning women’s health clinic staffed by a professional midwife. These clinics are supported by 6 full-time obstetrician/gynecologists who work across our sites.

Staff works with matrons and traditional birth attendants to ensure that pregnant women receive the safest and most efficient obstetric care possible. At the women’s health clinic at Rwinkwavu Hospital, in rural Rwanda, specialized nursing staff are trained in prenatal counseling and delivery as well as family planning. 

In June 2009, PIH Lesotho began training specialized community health workers to educate and accompany pregnant women to health centers, ensuring they receive care from skilled health professionals. In 2010, 70 percent of reported deliveries in PIH Lesotho’s Bobete Health Center catchment area occurred at the Health Center, a 350 percent increase in facility-based deliveries. Learn more about PIH Lesotho’s Maternal Mortality Reduction program.

Preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV

Ninety percent of the 2.5 million children living with HIV became infected during childbirth. So did the vast majority of more than 300,000 children who die of AIDS each year before reaching the age of five. Yet a simple and effective treatment for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) has been available since 1994.

In 1995, PIH began providing antiretroviral treatment for PMTCT to HIV-positive pregnant women in rural Haiti. Since the PMTCT program was introduced, the HIV infection rate of newborns born at PIH clinics has fallen to levels rivaling those in developed countries. This model for prevention has since been expanded to Rwanda, Malawi and Lesotho.