World Mom, Elizabeth Atalay, is on @BabyCenter again today!

World Mom, Elizabeth Atalay, is on @BabyCenter again today!

Elizabeth Atalay Head Shot

As part of World Moms Blog’s collaboration with BabyCenter’s Mission Motherhood™, our World Moms are writing posts on maternal health around the world. In today’s post, Elizabeth Atalay in the USA writes about the changes to her body during and after birthing and how the experience of birthing has united her to mothers who suffer from obstetric fistula in the developing world.

“Giving birth has a way of connecting women through an awakening of intimate understanding, also known as TMI (too much information)! We share stories with each other about topics previously unspeakable. Hemorrhoids! Incontinence! Milk leaking from breasts! Water breaking in public places! Yikes. The awe of pregnancy and the miracle of our bodies giving birth to new humans are intertwined with the humility it forces upon us like no other experience.”

Read the full post, “I never knew this could happen while giving birth“,  over at BabyCenter’s Mission Motherhood™!

Jennifer Burden

Jennifer Burden is the Founder and CEO of World Moms Network, an award winning website on global motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. World Moms Network writes from over 30 countries, has over 70 contributors and was listed by Forbes as one of the “Best 100 Websites for Women”, named a “must read” by The New York Times, and was recommended by The Times of India. She was also invited to Uganda to view UNICEF’s family health programs with Shot@Life and was previously named a “Global Influencer Fellow” and “Social Media Fellow” by the UN Foundation. Jennifer was invited to the White House twice, including as a nominated "Changemaker" for the State of the World Women Summit. She also participated in the One Campaign’s first AYA Summit on the topic of women and girl empowerment and organized and spoke on an international panel at the World Bank in Washington, DC on the importance of a universal education for all girls. Her writing has been featured by Baby Center, Huffington Post, ONE.org, the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life, and The Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists.” She is currently a candidate in Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in the Executive Masters of Public Affairs program, where she hopes to further her study of global policies affecting women and girls. Jennifer can be found on Twitter @JenniferBurden.

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WORLD VOICE: CELEBRATING WORLD AIDS DAY WITH BONO AND @ONECampaign

WORLD VOICE: CELEBRATING WORLD AIDS DAY WITH BONO AND @ONECampaign

Jen and Steve at ONE 2015 600

This past December, I accepted an invitation from the ONE Campaign to meet at Carnegie Hall for World AIDS Day, and Bono and the Edge would be playing. It was an event for some of their most active anti-poverty advocates.

I met my husband that evening in New York City, where he was working, and we headed to Carnegie Hall. We grabbed a drink and socialized before heading to our seats. I had received my first U2 CD as a gift for my 13th birthday from my childhood friend, Stephanie, and I’ve been a fan ever since.

There was no doubt that Bono was amazing on stage that night. The entire show was one of the best I’ve ever been to — The Edge, Jessie J, Hozier, Miley Cyrus and the Kinshasa Symphony from the Democratic Republic of the Condo all performed. President Bill Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, Stephen Colbert and Sting were also there to talk about ending poverty and eradicating the worldwide AIDS epidemic. Host of the Daily Show, Trevor Noah, Mcd the evening. They were all amazing.

Bono Miley Jessie Edge 600

Bono, Miley Cyrus, Jessie J and Hozier perform at the ONE event for World AIDS Day in NYC December, 2015.

 

Stephen Colbert recognized two activists who were, as he thought, Hispanic, and he apologized in advance for botching their names. He then proceeded to thank a Mr. and Mrs. Gates, or as he pronounced it, “Gahtays”. Colbert always brings the funny.

The RED Campaign unveiled a larger product line where proceeds go to the Global Fund to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. The message of the night of the importance to eradicate AIDS was profound. But, what was different about this concert was the atmosphere of the everyday people sitting among us, many of whom Bono has inspired to advocacy.

Prior to the show starting, we met a woman who runs a ONE chapter at a New Jersey university along with her husband. She and her husband had been big U2 fans, which fueled their interest in becoming ONE Campaign leaders at the university. Her husband couldn’t make the event, so her 9-year old daughter joined her at the concert. How lucky for her young, impressionable ears to experience the messaging and music which was about to unfold. It was interesting to me to see how U2 fans had followed Bono’s lead by organizing and inspiring students to join the campaign to end poverty.

Once we grabbed our seats, I met another woman in my row who had worked in a record store for 17 years and now works in admissions at a New York City museum. She was also a diehard fan of Bono and U2, and had become equally diehard about ending poverty as an activist with the ONE Campaign.

After the show, I caught up with journalist and activist, Kristi York Wooten, who is as passionate about ending poverty as she is about music. It is no surprise, she is also a powerful activist for the ONE Campaign. Following the event, she wrote an article for The Huffington Post entitled “Can Mily Cyrus Educate Millennials about the Fight Against AIDS?“. She says,

“These statistics [about the growth of AIDS worldwide] should also be a rallying call to artists such as Cyrus, Hozier and Jessie J, who are already involved in fighting AIDS: make your voices louder and take cues from the generation of musicians who came before. At Carnegie Hall, Cyrus told the audience she hoped to see the end of AIDS in her lifetime. I hope she works toward that goal with us, because music still has an important role to play in this battle!”

Kristi hit the nail on the head. Music does still have an important role to play in activism. What is most compelling is Bono’s ability to go beyond the lyrics of his songs and to create a path for his listeners to take action to help people living in extreme poverty. He has worked with top people in the field to create a way in which people like you and me can be involved. Worldwide activists write letters to their governments, tweet, lobby, deliver petitions, you name it, in support of eradicating poverty.

World Moms pose for a "Strengthie" with Neha Misra of Solar Sisters at a ONE Event in NYC in September, 2015.

World Moms pose for a “Strengthie” with Neha Misra of Solar Sisters at a ONE Event in NYC in September, 2015.

The concert was incredible, but if I had to go back and do the night all over again, I’d take more chances to get to know the stories of more people in the seats and how Bono and music had inspired them to activism. We were all joined in feeling Bono’s impactful words:

“There is no first world or third world. There is only one world.”

I quickly pulled out my phone to tweet out that beautiful quote, and then got reprimanded by an usher. The tweet would have to wait until after the show. I am so used to being completely tuned in to social media at events, I had to give myself permission to just sit back and enjoy the show.

I was grateful to. 

 

This is an original post to World Moms Blog by CEO and Founder, Jennifer Burden, of New Jersey, USA. 

Photo credits to the author. 

Jennifer Burden

Jennifer Burden is the Founder and CEO of World Moms Network, an award winning website on global motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. World Moms Network writes from over 30 countries, has over 70 contributors and was listed by Forbes as one of the “Best 100 Websites for Women”, named a “must read” by The New York Times, and was recommended by The Times of India. She was also invited to Uganda to view UNICEF’s family health programs with Shot@Life and was previously named a “Global Influencer Fellow” and “Social Media Fellow” by the UN Foundation. Jennifer was invited to the White House twice, including as a nominated "Changemaker" for the State of the World Women Summit. She also participated in the One Campaign’s first AYA Summit on the topic of women and girl empowerment and organized and spoke on an international panel at the World Bank in Washington, DC on the importance of a universal education for all girls. Her writing has been featured by Baby Center, Huffington Post, ONE.org, the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life, and The Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists.” She is currently a candidate in Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in the Executive Masters of Public Affairs program, where she hopes to further her study of global policies affecting women and girls. Jennifer can be found on Twitter @JenniferBurden.

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World Mom, Tina Santiago-Rodriguez is on @BabyCenter!

World Mom, Tina Santiago-Rodriguez is on @BabyCenter!

Tina Rodriguez Head Shot 600As part of World Moms Blog’s collaboration with BabyCenter’s Mission Motherhood™, our World Moms are writing posts on maternal health around the world. In today’s post, Tina Santiago-Rodriguez in the Philippines writes about milk sharing after Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) to help moms in need.

“My heart cried out at their unbearable situation, and I told myself I had to do something about it. By nature, I like helping people, so I felt that donating my milk was the right thing to do. I sent all my milk reserves to Ms. Maricel and Ms. Beng’s MilkSharing Hub, and told Ms. Maricel to distribute them to the needy babies in Tacloban.”

Read the full post over at BabyCenter’s Mission Motherhood™!

Jennifer Burden

Jennifer Burden is the Founder and CEO of World Moms Network, an award winning website on global motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. World Moms Network writes from over 30 countries, has over 70 contributors and was listed by Forbes as one of the “Best 100 Websites for Women”, named a “must read” by The New York Times, and was recommended by The Times of India. She was also invited to Uganda to view UNICEF’s family health programs with Shot@Life and was previously named a “Global Influencer Fellow” and “Social Media Fellow” by the UN Foundation. Jennifer was invited to the White House twice, including as a nominated "Changemaker" for the State of the World Women Summit. She also participated in the One Campaign’s first AYA Summit on the topic of women and girl empowerment and organized and spoke on an international panel at the World Bank in Washington, DC on the importance of a universal education for all girls. Her writing has been featured by Baby Center, Huffington Post, ONE.org, the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life, and The Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists.” She is currently a candidate in Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in the Executive Masters of Public Affairs program, where she hopes to further her study of global policies affecting women and girls. Jennifer can be found on Twitter @JenniferBurden.

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World Mom, To-wen Tseng, is on @BabyCenter Today!

World Mom, To-wen Tseng, is on @BabyCenter Today!

To-wen Tseng Head Shot

As part of World Moms Blog’s collaboration with BabyCenter’s Mission Motherhood™, our World Moms are writing posts on maternal health around the world. In today’s post, To-wen Tseng in the USA writes about meeting mothers at a health clinic in post earthquake Haiti on a trip to Port-au-Prince during her former career as a TV reporter.

“In the past, I jumped from disaster situation to disaster situation to report. I did my job, and moved on to the next story. However, it wasn’t until after I had become a mother myself two years ago, that I began to reconnect to the story of the Haitian mother who sadly couldn’t afford beans.”

Read the full post over at BabyCenter’s Mission Motherhood™!

World Moms Blog

World Moms Blog is an award winning website which writes from over 30 countries on the topics of motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. Over 70 international contributors share their stories from around the globe, bonded by the common thread of motherhood and wanting a better world for their children. World Moms Blog was listed by Forbes Woman as one of the "Best 100 Websites for Women 2012 & 2013" and also called a "must read" by the NY Times Motherlode in 2013. Our Senior Editor in India, Purnima Ramakrishnan, was awarded the BlogHer International Activist Award in 2013.

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#WorldMoms 2015 in Pictures

#WorldMoms 2015 in Pictures

Happy New Year #WorldMoms! If 2016 is anything like 2015 for us it is going to be a fantastic year! Here are some highlights, impact, and accomplishments of World Moms in 2015.

Founder and CEO, Jennifer Burden, accepted the UN Correspondents Association award on behalf of World Mom, Purnima Ramakrishnan of India:

https://www.facebook.com/worldmomsblog/videos/1290132341031041/

 

Purnima was unable to attend the event in New York as she was busy reporting on the flooding in Chennai, India where she lives with her family.

purnima

Managing Editor Elizabeth Atalay joined Jen at Cipriani in New York City for the UNCA Award Gala where they also caught up with Dan Thomas, a Communications Director at the UN. Dan was formerly our World Moms contact at the GAVI Alliance when he was in Switzerland!

Elizabeth Dan and Jen UNCA 2015

Jennifer and Steve Burden were in NYC to commemorate World AIDS Day and 10 years of ONE and (RED) with special guests Bono and The Edge, Hozier, Danai Gurira, Trevor Noah, Bill and Melinda Gates and more! #WAD2015 #WorldMoms

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Kirsten Doyle of Canada, visited her home country of South Africa in 2015. No international journey is complete without meeting up with a local World Mom!  Here she is with Mama Simona in Cape Town!

2015 WMB Meetup Kirsten and Simona

We celebrated #DayoftheGirl with our daughters from around the world. World Mom, Aisha Yesufu in Nigeria, wrote our post for #DayoftheGirl and her daughter is pictured below.

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World Mom Nicole Melancon climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with Solar Sisters to raise funds to launch new solar entrepreneurs.

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Our editors stay connected with global Skype calls throughout the year.Screen Shot 2016-01-03 at 9.23.22 PM

World Mom, Kristyn Zalota, continued to help to provide nurse training and Clean Birth Kits to mothers in Laos through the non-profit she founded Cleanbirth.org.

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World Mom, Susie in Israel, took her daughter in to the hospital where she works hard saving lives in Israel for “Take Your Daughter to Work Day!”Screen Shot 2016-01-04 at 6.27.36 AM

World Moms Blog attended the first ever Media Tour of Heifer Farms in Massachusetts.

heifer Collage

There were lots of speaking engagements around the world including:

World Moms Blog’s panel at the World Bank in April 2015 in Washington, DC on the importance of universal education for girls!

World Moms Blog Panel at World Bank 2015 600

World Mom, Cynthia Changyit Levin, also spoke at a RESULTS conference in Washington, DC on ending poverty.

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World Mom, To-wen Tseng, spoke at a Breastfeeding Conference in LA.

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And World Mom Sophia Neghesti Johnson spoke at a storytelling event for children, including a village story from Kenya, and one from Austria.

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In September while in New York for UN General Assembly week World Moms met up at a ONE Campaign “Poverty is Sexist” party and hung out with activist and Reggae legend, Rocky Dawani. We were also in NYC at that time for the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the Social Good Summit.:

World Moms With Rocky Dawani

 

We also started our collaboration with BabyCenter in October 2015, where our moms can also be found writing!

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In Kenya World Mom Tara Wambugu toured an elephant orphanage in Nairobi.

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Managing Editor, Elizabeth Atalay, and Social Media Editor, Nicole Morgan, advocated for vaccinations for children who need them most in Washington, DC with the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life Campaign and were both 2015 United Nations Foundation #SocialGood Fellows:

Elizabeth and Nicole at UNF

 

This summer World Mom, Jennifer Burden, visited the woman who wrote the very first post on World Moms Blog on November 1st, 2010! Astrid Warren, formerly known as pen name Asta Burrows, helped Jen raise the Lady WMB colors in Sogndal, Norway! The two took their families camping together among the fjords this past summer!

Astrid and Jen in Norway

World Mom Alison Fraser, Founder of Mom2MomAfrica visited students benefitting from the program she started in Tanzania.

Alison in Tanzania

World Moms Blog Founder and CEO, Jennifer Burden, interviewed the CEO of Save the Children, Carolyn Miles, in April 2015 at the UN in New York City. They were there for the UNCA press conference for the State of the World Mothers Report.

Jennifer Burden and Carolyn Miles

 

Aisha proudly voted in the March Elections in Nigeria.

Aisha Votes in Nigeria March Elections

World Mom, Aisha Yesufu of Nigeria, proudly votes in her country’s elections this year.

World Moms Blog Founder and CEO, Jennifer Burden, met the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban ki moon, at the UNCA gala in New York City in December.

Jennifer Burden and Ban Ki Moon 2015UNCA 600

 

We are excited to head into 2016 with new partners and exciting plans, and to see what this new year holds! Happy New Year!

World Moms Blog

World Moms Blog is an award winning website which writes from over 30 countries on the topics of motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. Over 70 international contributors share their stories from around the globe, bonded by the common thread of motherhood and wanting a better world for their children. World Moms Blog was listed by Forbes Woman as one of the "Best 100 Websites for Women 2012 & 2013" and also called a "must read" by the NY Times Motherlode in 2013. Our Senior Editor in India, Purnima Ramakrishnan, was awarded the BlogHer International Activist Award in 2013.

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USA: China’s One-Child Policy, America’s “Anchor Baby” Controversy

USA: China’s One-Child Policy, America’s “Anchor Baby” Controversy

To-Wen One Child Policy 600

In response to China’s latest announcement on their one-child policy and the incident of a Taiwanese woman giving birth on a China Airlines flight to the U.S., Taiwan’s National Education Radio recently invited me to talk about America’s “anchor baby” controversy on their morning talk show.

An “anchor baby” is a child that born to a noncitizen mother in a country which has birthright citizenship. The term is especially offensive when viewed as providing an advantage to family members seeking to secure citizenship or legal residency.

Offensive or not, anchor babies do exist. According to the Department of State, noncitizen mothers gave birth to 35,000 babies in the U.S. last year, and 30,000 of them were born to Chinese women who traveled to the U.S. for the sole purpose of giving birth (Chinese language link).

And this, of course, has a lot to do with China’s one-child policy. For several decades, the only way for a Chinese couple to have a second child, is to give birth outside of China in a country which has birthright citizenship.

Taiwanese, though not under the one-child policy, like to have their babies born in the U.S. for a “potentially better future” for the children. It is reported that last year about 300 Taiwanese woman traveled to the U.S. just to have their babies born here.

Now, a recently announced rule allowing couples to have two children will be officially adopted on the first day of next year in China, and some Chinese couples have canceled their plan of giving birth in the U.S.

For example, a girlfriend of mine from Nanjing is pregnant with her second child, due next May. She was planning to come to the U.S. to give birth here, but she changed her birth plan after the China’s National Health and Family-Planning Association made the announcement that it was ending the one-child policy, which was instituted in the late 1970s.

She told me that many mothers from her QQ (Chinese Facebook) group “Giving Birth in America” also changed their mind about giving birth in the U.S., since the announcement.

This is good news. In fact, it is very risky for these Chinese women to travel to the U.S. and give birth here. The high demand of giving birth to an American baby among Chinese mothers has led to the illegal operation of “maternity tourism” in California, New York, and other areas where Chinese-Americans have settled.

The maternity tourism service providers arrange for the Chinese mothers to enter the U.S. on tourist visas and hide them in apartment homes, or so called “maternity centers,” while waiting to give birth. This practice is often associated with visa fraud, conspiracy, and other crimes in which women were helped to fabricate documents for visa applications and coached to falsely claim that they were traveling to the U.S. for tourism.

I followed the maternity tourism story for years as a journalist. The stories that occur in the “maternity centers” can be scary. Some of the “maternity centers” are very popular, so popular that the service providers want all the mothers to give birth and leave as soon as possible. This is so they can arrange more maternity trips for more mothers. The centers often give drugs that induce labor to the mothers, and the drugs can be harmful to the babies. Earlier this year when the Federal government raided maternity tourism in California, hundreds of mothers with little big bumps or tiny babies were throw into the street. It was horrible.

Many mothers knowingly came to the U.S. in full awareness of the risks. It’s hard to understand why they would be willing to risk their health and the the babies’ well-being. Let’s wish the trend will slowly die down with the end of China’s one-child policy.

A report I did on maternity tourism back in 2012, way before the main-stream media noticed the trend. (Chinese with English subtitles):

This is an original post to World Mom Blog by World Mom, To-wen Tseng of California, USA .

To-Wen Tseng

Former TV reporter turned freelance journalist, children's book writer in wee hours, nursing mom by passion. To-wen blogs at I'd rather be breastfeeding. She can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.

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