Every year in the world 303.000 women lose their lives due to complications related to pregnancy and childbirth, and for another 10 million becoming a mother means to carry diseases and infections throughout their lives.

If 99% of maternal deaths occur in developing countries, sub-Saharan Africa alone accounts for 66%. Here, for a woman, a natural event such as motherhood can turn into an unpredictable adventure, like crossing an unknown river. Today in Africa, in 100.000 childbirths there are still 546 mothers who don’t survive, compared to 12 in the more developed areas of the planet. Over her reproductive lifespan, an African woman has one chance in 36 of dying during childbirth, while for a European or North American mother the risk is only one in 4.900.

The most frequent cause of death is hemorrhage, followed by infections, hypertension, and abortions. According to the World Health Organization, the majority of these losses could be avoided with adequate diagnosis and quality obstetric-gynecological assistance. Betty, Flaviour, Halima and Natalia are health professionals in Uganda, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Mozambique, nations with very poor women’s health indicators.
In the Ugandan region of Karamoja, Betty Agan is the chief-midwife in a rural healthcare facility and, thanks to her innovative approach to women, she has been persuading more and more mothers to give birth with her, in safe conditions. Flaviour Nhawu works as a public health specialist in Sierra Leone, the country with the highest maternal mortality rate in the world: in the southern district of Bonthe, she is seriously improving healthcare services for women.
Halima Haruna Yusuf is a doctor in an almost completely destroyed town in Borno, the Nigerian state most affected by Boko Haram attacks, where women are paying the highest price of the conflict. Natalia Chimundi is a psychologist in Beira, Mozambique: she sensitizes young women on the subject of HIV, which in the country has one of the highest spreads in the world.
Their personal stories, marked by an uncommon obstinacy, tell how in some places of the world motherhood can turn out to be an authentic struggle for life. And how solidarity between women can be one of the keys to promote the women’s right to health.

Crossing the River has been produced thanks to the support of the Innovation in Development Reporting Grant Program of the European Journalism Centre and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in collaboration with Doctors with Africa CUAMM and Intersos NGOs.