Mothers matter

Sierra Leone’s First Lady Sia Nyama Koroma – a former nurse – has taken up the cause of reducing maternal mortality. Today, women in Sierra Leone have a lifetime risk of dying in childbirth of 1 in 8. Even that devastating statistic understates the real tragedy, however, because far too often when a mother dies, her newborn child follows soon thereafter. And we don’t need to point out what this means for the other children she leaves behind.

Here is First Lady Koroma writing recently in the Huffington Post, arguing that “It’s Time to Make Mothers a Priority.”