We’ll speak about the high rate of maternal illness and death worldwide, especially in Africa and South Asia. A study published in the Lancet in April 2010 revealed that the number of annual maternal deaths has declined slightly in the last 30 years.

Lynn Freedman, director of the Averting Maternal Death and Disability Program, and the Law and Policy Project, and professor of Clinical Population and Family Health at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health; Dr. Grace Kodindo, assistant clinical professor of Population and Family Health at the Mailman School of Public Health; and Belle Taylor-McGhee, president of the California Coalition for Reproductive Freedon and former president and CEO of the Pacific Institute for Women's Health, join us to discuss the progress that’s been made as well as what still needs to be done to make pregnancy and childbirth safer worldwide.