Imagine that you are a young woman who is pregnant, lives in a
remote location far from a hospital, and you have a husband and
mother-in law who think giving birth at home with an untrained
attendant will suffice. Imagine that you are giving birth in a
local health clinic and you start convulsing, and the medicine
to help you and your unborn baby is simply not on the shelf,
which is also slim on other, much-needed medications. Imagine
that all goes well with your birth until you start bleeding and,
even though you are in a hospital, there is no blood bank and a
family member is asked to go out of the hospital to find a blood
donor. No woman should die giving birth, and yet maternal
mortality, despite progress, remains one of the leading causes
of death among women of reproductive age in developing
countries. Most of these deaths are preventable. Secretary of
State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently stated in Oslo, “…
surviving childbirth and growing up healthy should not be a
matter of luck or where you live or