Tag Archives: maternal health

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Celebrate Mother’s Day: Support Maternal Health

While we’re all browsing the web for ideas for Mother’s Day, this is also a time to consider mothers-to-be. For most women, whether you’re expecting your first or your fourth child, anticipating the arrival of a baby is fraught with anxiety. For women without access to proper maternal care and a safe delivery, it’s a nightmare.

Access to safe, affordable maternal care is a struggle for women globally. Did you know 303,000 women die every year as a result of complications during pregnancy and childbirth? That’s one woman every two minutes. It is also still a struggle for expectant mothers in the United States, where the maternal mortality rate has risen. Although 99% of Maternal Deaths occur in the developing world, In America two women die every day from preventable pregnancy complications as a result of a lack of access. 

The sad reality is that 98% of these maternal deaths are preventable.

As part of the movement to create a global network of women supporting women, Mother’s Day is the perfect opportunity to honor mothers and women around the world by supporting a cause that, at its core, is close to every person’s heart.

Pass the #OrangeRose.

We a proud to partner with Every Mother Counts (EMC) an organization that is supporting the global community by providing mothers around the world with access to maternal care. Their life-saving grants for pregnant women have impacted over 600,000 lives.

The orange rose is the universal symbol of maternal health. This Mother’s Day, Every Mother Counts is encouraging individuals to ‘Pass the #Orange Rose’ as part of a campaign that raises awareness for maternal health and the preventable causes of death associated with childbearing.

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Top 5 Causes of Preventable Maternal Death:

1. Lack of access to properly trained staff and fully equipped clinics. This is not just a ‘third world problem.’ Access to maternal health care is disappearing in rural America, according to this recent article in Scientific American. Many women in  rural United States travel more than 90 minutes to deliver their baby. Most who make the trek end up delivering on the side of a road. When a rural hospital budget is cut, obstetrical wards are often the first to go. For example, in 1980, 45 of Alabama’s rural hospitals had obstetrical services. Today, in 2017, only 16 of them offer obstetrical care.

2. Postpartum bleeding. Postpartum bleeding — the result of not all of the placenta being delivered, a tear in the uterus, or poor blood clotting — occurs in up to 18% of births and is the most common maternal morbidity in developed countries.

3. Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. Hypertensive disorders, the most well-known being preeclampsia (very high blood pressure due as a result of the pregnancy), are commonly spotted and addressed during routine maternal care. However, if a mother is not receiving this vital care and delivers without the assistance of medical professionals, she would have no way to spot the signs. When left untreated, it results in death during pregnancy or within six weeks of delivery.

4. Postpartum infections. Postpartum infections are another difficult one to spot with all of the trauma that a woman’s body goes through after delivery (akin to a major surgery). Also particularly difficult to catch if this was a mother’s first childbirth and she has no baseline for what’s considered feeling “normal” after delivery. The most common infection is puerperal sepsis. Individuals receiving maternal care would have this caught either in the hospital before discharge or by the their first routine checkup the week after delivery and are cured quickly and easily with antibiotics. Without that care, however, the outcome is quite the opposite.

5. Obstructed labor. Though the uterus appears to be contracting normally, during obstructed labor the baby cannot exit the pelvis. Without giving birth under the watchful eye of staff trained in the signs and protocol for obstructed labor or without the ability to transfer the mother to a  hospital where doctors can safely perform a caesarean section, this is another common complication that will result in a preventable maternal death.

Companies That Give Back: Maternal Health Mondays

Here at The Pajama Company, we can’t imagine a life without our mothers. Let’s work together and create a network of individuals and businesses who support the global community of women and ensure that more children can have a chance to make memories with their mom in 2017.

10% of every pajama sale on Maternal Health Monday will go directly to Every Mother Counts to

  • –Provide pre- and postnatal care and education for low-income, at-risk mothers in central Florida
  • –Provide electricity and training health workers to prevent deaths from postpartum hemorrhage in Tanzania
  • –Train midwives and provide emergency transfers from rural clinics to referral hospitals in Haiti
  • –Train activists and lawyers to document maternal health rights violations in India
  • –Provide transportation vouchers to pregnant women, enabling them to get to a clinic for the full course of prenatal care, safe delivery, and follow-up visit in Uganda
  • –Provide 1,000 women with the full range of pregnancy care in Bangladesh
  • –Recruit and train 6 professional Syrian midwives to provide emergency obstetric and trauma-based care inside Syria
  • –Train indigenous students from rural areas to become professional midwives in a university degree program in Guatemala

EMC works toward the goal of making pregnancy and childbirth safe for every mother, everywhere. You can support EMC by donating directly or by supporting one of their partners, including us at The Pajama Company, TOMS, and Clare V.

 

 

 

 

Help Make Childbirth and Pregnancy Safe With Your Holiday Shopping

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By Ellie Badanes, Founder & CEO, The Pajama Company

As an important member of The Pajama Company community, we wanted to let you know about something close to our heart. 

Every two minutes, one woman dies due to complications related to childbirth or pregnancy. But 98% of those deaths are preventable. These preventable deaths are happening everyday around the world, and believe it or not, here in the United States.

In 2011, this startling statistic led us to make an unprecedented decision at The Pajama Company. We knew pajamas could be about more than a lazy day at home (though we all need those, too). Pajamas give us comfort and a feeling of safety. It’s a feeling those of us fortunate to live in safe places with access to excellent health care take for granted. We wanted to use our pajamas to help more women feel that comfort around the world.

So we began our partnership with Every Mother Counts, an advocacy and mobilization campaign to increase education and support for maternal and child health. Thanks to all of you, we’ve helped raise awareness about the serious dangers too many women still face in pregnancy and child birth. Thanks to all of you, we’ve contributed to programs helping women around the world to have better outcomes.

Through their work, Every Mother Counts has impacted the lives of more than 500,000 women. This includes providing healthcare to 50,000 mothers and children in Haiti and helping more than 90,000 mothers reach quality healthcare in Uganda.

But their work is not only focused abroad. The United States is one of only 13 countries where maternal mortality is on the rise. Every Mother Counts is working to help low income women in the U.S. access childbirth education and prenatal care.

As a mother, I started The Pajama Company, to bring comfort to families and celebrate those moments when we are home with our loved ones. I know many of you are mothers, too. Becoming a mother can bring so much joy to life, it should not threaten life.

givingtuesday2016

You can help us continue to support their important efforts through your holiday shopping today. Today, Giving Tuesday, we’re donating 10% of all our pajama sales to Every Mother Counts.

We hope you will continue with us in our support of mothers around the world. Read more about maternal mortality on our website, and learn more about the issue at EveryMotherCounts.org. Make your pajama purchases count for a little more by shopping with us on Maternal Health Monday (today) and tell your friends about it on Facebook and Twitter.

From one mother to another, let’s remember that all moms count.

 

Your PJ purchase supports maternal health today!

“Each preventable death is one too many.”

–Christy Turlington Burns

Today is Maternal Health Monday at The Pajama Company! Twice a month we give 10% of every pajama purchase to Every Mother Counts, an organization dedicated to making pregnancy and childbirth safe for every mother.

The sad fact is that one woman every two minutes dies during pregnancy and childbirth, and 98% of those deaths are preventable. Every Mother Counts links mothers with providers of essential care and raises awareness and resources towards the barriers to maternal health through transportation, education, and supplies.

Join us in supporting this important cause – start shopping now!

Share The Love

By Ellie Badanes, The Pajama Company Editor

All of us at The Pajama Company want to wish you a Happy Happy Valentine’s Day! We hope your day is spent with those you love with a large dose of happy and a chance to celebrate in pajamas. We also want to tell you about the Share The Love campaign from our partner Every Mother Counts. Every 2nd Monday we host “Maternal Health Monday” where we work to spread awareness to the issues of maternal and child health around the world. We also donate 10% of our sales those days to the important work of Every Mother Counts with the goal of making pregnancy and childbirth safe for moms everywhere.

Did you know that 800 women die every day from pregnancy and childbirth complications? This tragic fact makes reproductive health problems the leading cause of death world wide for women ages 15 to 44. The worst part is that experts estimate that 90% of these deaths are preventable.

Today, in celebration of Valentine’s Day and as part of their  “Every Heart Counts” month long campaign,  Every Mother Counts is asking our female members of Congress to keep women and girls at the heart of our country’s work here and abroad. We hope you will check it out and join the conversation. Be sure to follow @EveryMotherCounts on twitter and Like the campaign on facebook.

Thank You For Supporting Mothers

by Ellie Badanes, Founder of The Pajama Company

Last October we made an unprecedented decision at The Pajama Company. We knew pajamas could be about more than a lazy day at home (though we all need those, too). Pajamas give us comfort and a feeling of safety. It’s a feeling those of us fortunate to live in safe places with access to excellent health care take for granted. We wanted to use our pajamas to help more women feel that comfort around the world.

We learned that eight hundred women die every day from complications of pregnancy and childbirth, but 90 percent of those deaths are preventable. So, in October we began our partnership with Every Mother Counts, an advocacy and mobilization campaign to increase education and support for maternal and child health. Thanks to all of you, we’ve helped raise awareness about the serious dangers too many women still face in pregnancy and child birth. Thanks to all of you, we’ve contributed to programs helping women around the world to have better outcomes.

At The Pajama Company we call every other monday, Maternal Health Monday, and donate 10 percent of our sales to Every Mother Counts. Thanks to your purchases, we have supported their programs to help women receive better health care in Africa and Afghanistan, as well as their important outreach efforts. You have helped us share shocking facts about maternal mortality across every social media platform.

We hope you will continue with us in our support of mothers around the world. Read more about maternal mortality on our website, and learn more about the issue at EveryMotherCounts.org. Make your pajama purchases count for a little more by shopping with us on Maternal Health Monday (today) and tell your friends about it on Facebook and Twitter.

From one mother to another, let’s remember that all moms count.

Valentine’s Special #MaternalHealthMonday

Sadly, in 2011, for many women around the world, the basic right of bringing a child safely into the world remains a luxury. In fact, today a woman will die every 90 seconds from complications of pregnancy.

That startling fact is why The Pajama Company has chosen to partner with Every Mother Counts, a non-profit advocacy organization focused on increasing education and support for maternal and child health around the world. Today we are donating 10 percent of our sales to Every Mother Counts.

Read more about how you can help make child birth safe for all women at EveryMotherCounts.org and learn 10 facts about Maternal Mortality.

Shop for your Valentine’s Day gifts today and support women around the world at the same time.

"Hearts" Women's Plush Robe; Available in S, M, L, XL

Congratulations To CNN Hero Robin Lim

We’re thrilled to congratulate this year’s CNN Hero of the Year, Robin Lim!

As a midwife, Lim has helped thousands of low-income women have safe birthing experiences in Indonesia.

We’re especially excited about the recognition of Lim’s hard work because maternal health is an issue near and dear to our hearts. Earlier this year we announced a partnership with Every Mother Counts, an advocacy and mobilization campaign to increase education and support for maternal and child health.

In her acceptance speech at the awards Lim spoke about the dangers women face giving birth around the world every day.

“Today on our Earth, 981 mothers in the prime of their life will die — and tomorrow again and yesterday,” she said. “And I’m asking you to help change that. We don’t even know how many babies are lost, but all of us can help change that.”

Today we are supporting the critical work of Every Mother Counts by donating 10 percent of every sale at The Pajama Company. #MaternalHealthMonday

Doing Good In Pajamas

While we sat comfortably in our pajamas we learned of a startling statistic: around the world, a woman dies every 90 seconds due to complications of pregnancy. We knew that was one statistic that our founder (a mother of three) and most of our customers would not be able to ignore. When we learned that 90 percent of those deaths are preventable, we decided to do our part to help.

Today, The Pajama Company is thrilled to announce it is partnering with Every Mother Counts, an advocacy and mobilization campaign to increase education and support for maternal and child health.

Now you have the opportunity to do your part while wearing your pajamas. Today is Maternal Health Monday at The Pajama Company and we are donating 10 percent of every sale to Every Mother Counts.

As The Pajama Company President and Founder writes on her blog, “Yes, we lounge in pajamas. We celebrate in pajamas. We work in pajamas. Today, we are doing something important in pajamas.” Read more about why the cause of maternal and child health is important to Ellie at Life in Pajamas.

Learn what you can do to make pregnancy safe for all women at EveryMotherCounts.org.