No Maternal Health Without Clean Water

What does the water in your glass have to do with the health of mothers and babies around the globe? Quite a lot actually.

Without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation — like safe toilet facilities — women face dangerous health risks in pregnancy, during childbirth and in the postpartum period.

A woman faces both the direct consequences of contaminated water and a lack of facilities, like infection, and indirect consequences, such as the violence she might encounter if she has to venture into unsafe territory to collect water or to relieve herself. In global health, we’re too accustomed to dividing the health of a population into compartments — compartments too small to fully address key risks to health.

Instead of looking at water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) as a separate problem from maternal health, we must take a systems approach to recognize, and then treat, the complex factors that affect a woman’s health. Infection Infection — the third most likely killer of women in pregnancy and the 42 days that follow — kills approximately 31,700 women every year during this vulnerable time. Without clean water and basic sanitation, a woman’s ability to fight infection is compromised. […]

Full article: No Maternal Health Without Clean Water

More about lead in water, fetal deaths, prematurity, developmental effects:

Study: Flint’s lead-poisoned water had ‘horrifyingly large’ effect on fetal deaths

How a Pediatrician Became a Detective

Hydraulic fracturing negatively impacts infant health

New York governor signs law mandating lead testing in schools

Flint Water Crisis Deaths Likely Surpass Official Toll

Watchdog says lack of EPA oversight helped cause ‘catastrophic’ Flint water crisis