57 million women give birth each year without the help of a trained professional. Photo: hugrakka(Flicker)

Bringing one life into the world shouldn't mean sacrificing another. While the developing world scrambles to secure funding for midwifery services, there's a cheap, short-term solution: birth kits.

The risk of death due to pregnancy or childbirth is 1 in 8,000 in developed countries, as opposed to 1 in 17 in developing countries, according to the organization Unite For Sight. Yearly, approximately 57 million women give birth in their home without the help of a trained professional, increasing the risk of complications.

Midwives are an essential player in lowering maternal deaths. "Midwives can save women's and newborns' lives if they are properly trained and equipped, and if a support network is available," writes the World Health Organization. Worldwide, the WHO estimates, there is a shortage of 350,000 midwives. But training 350,000 new midwives won't happen overnight. In the meantime, birth kits could fill the gap.

Birth kits provide the tools for a safer and sanitary delivery, including soap to wash hands, razors and ties for the umbilical cord, plastic sheets for a clean surface, and an instruction sheet.

The impact of birth kits can be life-saving but their success depends on acceptability within the community where it is introduced. At times, modifications might be needed such as redesigning the instruction sheet to use images instead of words, considering low literacy rates. PATH, an international organization which focuses on global health and well-being, has produced kits used in Bangladesh, Egypt and Nepal. Cutting the umbilical cord on a coin is considered good luck in Nepal. To adhere to traditional customs, PATH created a kit that includes a plastic rupee.

Another common problem: Cutting the umbilical cord with unsanitary, used razor blades. Disposable razor blades or an illustrated instruction sheet encouraging woman and midwives to sterilize reusable blades after every use could reduce this problem. The Janma clean delivery birthing kit by AYZH is making modifications to its current scalpel handle design to discourage reuse.

Though midwives are the ideal choice for safe births, families can't always afford their services. Government and non-profit programs that subsidize midwifery programs aren't economically sustainable in the long run. A model pursued by the Midwifery Association of Pakistan involves changing public perceptions of the midwife's role in health care, advocates for government-set standards for midwifery education, and lobbies for professional rights.

Until midwifery is economically viable and publicly understood, we need an affordable stop-gap solution to save lives. Maternal mortality will continue to rise if birth kits—and, eventually, midwifery services—aren’t accessible to the women who need them now.

An image of an endocervical gland taken during a pap smear. Simple vinegar turns out to be a lower-cost alternative to tests like this one. Photo:Ed Uthman(flicker)

A common household item can serve a double purpose: it gives flavor in your kitchen, and it saves your life.

A low-cost innovation—vinegar— can help detect cervical cancer and save thousands of lives in developing nations.

Developed by the John Hopkins medical school in the 1990’s and endorsed by the World Health Organization, vinegar is brushed on a woman’s cervix. The vinegar causes precancerous spots to turn white, reports The New York Times.

The spots can be instantly frozen off with a metal probe cooled by a tank of carbon dioxide.

In the traditional Western test for cervical cancer, a pap smear, a scraping of the cervix is taken and sent to a lab for testing. High-quality labs are scarce in many poor countries, and waiting for results can take weeks. Woman who live in rural areas are hard to reach. The vinegar procedure, known as VIA/cryo, only requires a nurse and a single visit to detect and kill the cancer.

Each year, more than 250,000 women die from cervical cancer, 85 percent of them in poor or middle-income countries.

Solutions to problems don’t always have to be high-tech. A little creativity and ingenuity can go a long way.

Market in Port au Prince, Haiti. Photo: Miguel Ángel (flickr)

I recently accepted an invitation to speak at a showing of the documentary “The Price of Sugar” sponsored by Portland State University. “The Price of Sugar,” which I had not seen before that event, is a powerful documentary depicting the plight of Haitians who toil on sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic.

According to the filmmakers, these workers cross the border from Haiti to labor in conditions that the film's central protagonist, Father Christopher Hartley, calls "quasi-slavery." They are housed in sugar company towns called bateyes. Stripped of identification papers, they cannot legally travel elsewhere in the country.

My role in the May 7 event involved offering my perspectives on the economic conditions in Haiti that drive Haitians to cross the border illegally and risk arrest and deportation. Since February 2006, I’ve had several opportunities to travel to Haiti to work on developing economic and educational projects in this poorest of counties in the Western Hemisphere.

Imagine my surprise the morning of the event to receive both an email and a fax at my office at Marylhurst University from the Washington, D.C. office of Patton Boggs, LLP informing me their law office represents the Vicini family, “who are involved in various business ventures in the Dominican Republic including sugar.”

According to the 29-page document, the Vicinis are the victims of misrepresentation by the makers of the documentary; the documentary contained no less than 53 errors, omissions, or fabrications that allegedly amount to defamation of the Vicini family and businesses; and a “cease and desist” motion had been filed in a United States District Court in Boston, Massachusetts. “What,” I thought, “kind of mess did I just step in?”

A careful reading of the legal document revealed that I wasn’t a target, but simply being informed that a legal effort has been underway to stop the distribution and showing of the video. Since I had no direct knowledge of the information contained in the video, nor was I in any way responsible for obtaining and showing the video, I chose to go ahead with my prepared remarks on general economic conditions in Haiti and show my own photos from recent trips to that country.

What’s important here, and both I and my hosts at the video screening were careful to point this out, is that anyone interested in learning more about the economic, political, and social conditions of people engaged in trade around the world are obligated to choose their information sources wisely and carefully.

Researchers seeking support for their own agendas and ideas can easily find sources that will support their position. We are human after all and we gravitate toward those bits of data that seem to resonate with our opinions. But careful researchers who desire to build a real knowledge of the world have a much tougher challenge. Researchers seeking an accurate picture of the conditions under which people labor around the world may find it harder to find unbiased, neutral, accurate data.

It is not my intent here to pass judgment on the veracity of the information contained in “The Price of Sugar” or to comment on the legal claims of anyone connected with the video. My intent is to caution viewers to be diligent in their pursuit of true knowledge by exercising a reasonable amount of skepticism and to engage in critical thinking any time they are learning something new.