What should be done to end preventable maternal deaths

Postpartum haemorrhage is one of the leading causes of maternal death. [Courtesy] 

Childbirth should be the sound of a new heartbeat, the scent of warm blankets, the sweet exhaustion of a couple gazing at their newborn. But in Kenya, too often than we care to admit, the first words a father hears are not his baby’s cry — they are the quiet, gut-wrenching ones: “I’m sorry. We couldn’t save her. Recent estimates show that Kenya loses 120 mothers to preventable maternal deaths every week. This is an unacceptable reality, and we must do everything in our power to end it.

Behind those statistics are shattered families — partners forever carrying the weight of heartbreak, and children robbed of a mother’s love before they could even experience it. Recently, I met a man who described, in vivid and painful detail, how, in one surreal moment, they were handed two things: A swaddled newborn and a death certificate. In that instant, joy and grief are so intertwined that it’s impossible to tell them apart. The man is no longer simply a husband; he is a widower, a single parent, and a survivor of a loss society rarely lets him grieve.