Eight years ago, and eight months pregnant with her second child, Rarash Dagnaw gave birth alone on the floor of her tiny home in the Amhara region of Northern Ethiopia. Technically, her husband was there, but, wildly drunk and fully passed out, he wasn?t exactly a supportive birth partner. What?s more, he?d almost certainly induced her premature labour by striking her when he opened the door in a fit of drunken anger a few hours before. As the 20-year-old screamed in pain throughout the labour and delivery, he barely roused.
Eleven days later, her baby died. Neither the mother nor the premature child was seen by a doctor or healthcare provider. That?s just the way it was. Dagnaw didn?t have any prenatal care either?not a blood test, not an ultrasound, not an examination, not a single appointment. And ?self-care? wasn?t even remotely on her mind; she was frequently hungry throughout her pregnancy because food was limited and, in her society, the husband gets first dibs, no matter what. No one questions it. In 2012, the same year Dagnaw lost her child, the World Health Organization declared preterm birth an urgent health priority worldwide. That?s because complications from prematurity are the number one cause of death in kids under age five. While prematurity is a concern globally, 80 percent of preterm births worldwide occur in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. In some ways, that?s actually a good news story: As the rates of death from things like malaria, diarrhea and measles...