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I started CleanBirth.org with a mission of improving birth safety for moms in Laos because I am a mom and I wanted to support other mothers.

Being a mother is a challenging role for me.  It isn’t always easy setting aside the “me” and putting my kids first.  But it’s what moms do, right?  Right.

Mothers often go so far as to prioritize kids’ needs at the expense of our own health.  This is a mistake. To ensure good health for themselves and their children, women need competent health care before and after giving birth.

In developed countries, we are in most cases lucky enough to have sufficient practitioners and hospitals.  This is not the case in the developing world.  The WHO finds:

”The risk of a woman in a developing country dying from a maternal-related cause during her lifetime is about 33 times higher compared to a woman living in a developed country. Maternal mortality is a health indicator that shows very wide gaps between rich and poor, urban and rural areas, both between countries and within them.”

Here is the WHO’s advice in a nutshell about what is needed to prevent needless maternal deaths:

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We atCleanBirth.org agree that no woman should die in pregnancy and childbirth.  We are doing our small part by promoting maternal health among poor, rural, minority familiesin Salavan Province, Laos.  We provide moms with safe birthing supplies in a cute pink bag and fund counseling from local nurses, who we train twice annually.

We work to ensure that mothers survive birth.  Please join us by donating $5 which gives a mom and baby a birth kit that prevents infection: www.cleanbirth.org/donate.

What programs do you know of that have been effective in improving maternal health?

Kristyn Zalota, a World Moms Blog contributor from the USA, is a mom of two and also the founder of Cleanbirth.org, a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Working with a local Lao partner, Cleanbirth.org empowers nurses to provide women in their communities with Clean Birth Kits and safe birthing education. To date, Cleanbirth.org has provided 5,000 birth kits and funded training for 250 nurses.

Kristyn Zalota

Kristyn brings her years of experience as an entrepreneur and serial volunteer to CleanBirth.org. She holds a MA, has run small businesses in Russia and the US, and has volunteered in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Uganda on projects related to women’s empowerment. After having children, Kristyn became an advocate for mothers in the US, as a doula and Lamaze educator, and abroad, as the Founder of CleanBirth.org. She is honored to provide nurses in Laos with the supplies, funding and training they need to lower maternal and infant mortality rates in their villages.

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