Empowering mothers to provide a healthy beginning for their newborns
Gema, a first-time mother, after safely delivering a healthy baby boy at a
UNICEF-supported community health centre in Timor-Leste © Ricardo Araujo
Timor-Leste is just over an hour's flight from Australia, but the experience women face while giving birth is worlds apart.
In Timor-Leste, being pregnant poses significant risks and challenges. Accessing quality healthcare is a struggle, with less than half of pregnant women able to access maternity wards within health facilities. Tragically, 1 in 20 children pass away before their fifth birthday, almost entirely from preventable and treatable medical challenges. Most of these deaths occurring within their first month of life.
Accessing quality, specialist healthcare becomes paramount for young mothers like Gema. “I feel more secure and safer to come to the hospital for delivery. I am happy and feel relief now that the delivery was all good,” she said, after delivering birth to a healthy boy in a UNICEF-supported community health facility (pictured). As a first-time mother, Gema found solace and reassurance in the heightened quality of care provided at the health facility, a marked contrast to the traditional practice of home deliveries prevalent among many women in Timor-Leste.
The health facility was equipped with pre-and-postpartum technology and supplies. Thanks to the generosity of UNICEF supporters, new mothers also receive Midwifery Kit or similar items, vital for a healthy start to life.
This Mother's Day, you could help save a child and mother's life by dedicating a Mother’s Day Midwifery Pack to someone special.