Papers
Files
DOI
10.7252/Paper.000019
Series
Association of Professors of Mission 2013 - Workshop Paper #5
Publication Date
2013
Publisher
First Fruits Press
Place of publication
Wilmore, Ky.
Keywords
Association, of, Professors, Mission, APM, Conference, Papers, 2013
Disciplines
Missions and World Christianity
Biography
Included
Recommended Citation
Scott, Daniel D., "“Save the Mothers”: A Maternal Health Missiology" (2013). Papers. 22.
https://place.asburyseminary.edu/firstfruitspapers/22
Call Number
BV2090 .S624 / BV2020 .A876 2013
Language
English
Comments
ABSTRACT
About three hundred and forty-two thousand and nine hundred women die yearly from something that is preventable. They die because of complications during pregnancy and childbirth. The risk of maternal death is particularly high in sub-Saharan Africa. Women in this region don’t have access to the care they need. The right of such access must first be embraced by the wider society so that women will seek maternity services and, when they do, they must be met by an effective maternity care system.
Reducing the number of mothers that die in childbirth is one of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDG # 5). Yet the target set for 2015 is unlikely to be met. Indeed, the global picture of maternal mortality and morbidity has changed very little over the past twenty years despite isolated (and often medically based) efforts to improve the situation.
A Canadian obstetrician and SIM missionary has developed a multidisciplinary approach to this very complicated social and cultural problem. Using the Save the Mothers’ program at Uganda Christian University (a Master in Public Health Leadership) with its’ focus on training national, primarily non medical, advocates to bring about political and cultural change as a case study, suggestions will be given for developing a Maternal Health Missiology.