Blog

It’s not new information that smoking is horrible for your health and cigarettes and developing babies don’t mix. Smoking causes cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory disease. It’s linked to infertility, gum disease and rapid aging. It compromises pregnancies and is a contributor to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, childhood asthma and other just plain nasty health conditions. So why on earth does anyone still smoke? Plain and simple, people smoke for pleasure and because they’re addicted. These factors affect men and women all over the world from all demographics, cultures, races, and socioeconomic groups.

Last week we closed out our Mozilla Firefox Challenge with a really nice, $17,152 total. What does that mean for mothers who need us? That means your donations will buy 780 Mama kits for women in Uganda. What is a Mama kit? A Mama kit contains the basic supplies a woman needs to deliver safely. In many parts of the world, women are expected to supply their own medical equipment, especially if they’re delivering at home or bring money to pay for the use of a clinic’s supplies.

On our last day in Haiti, we had one more interview. Genette Thelusmond, 40, is a former student who is now an instructor for the Midwives for Haiti program.

We really love the work Healing Hands of Joy (HHOJ) is doing to help women dealing with fistula in Ethiopia and we love that they use a multi-dimensional approach. HHOJ puts former fistula patients in rural Ethiopia back on their feet by training them to be safe maternal health ambassadors. We also love their new awareness and fundraising campaign – Film Fights Fistula. Thanks to the support of the PBS award-winning science series, NOVA, supporters can host their own screening of the Emmy Award winning Documentary, A Walk To Beautiful, which follows five Ethiopian women who suffer from fistula as they seek a cure.