"The experience was very liberating. I was just overwhelmed with emotions. I was crying, but I was happy I was finally able to hold my child," said a woman in a video from the new online exhibit offered on the website for the International Museum of Women. "The first two months of my pregnancy, I went to the doctor, but as I got to the end of my pregnancy, I couldn't because the Taliban was here," another woman said. The stories are included as part of a bigger effort to raise awareness about improving maternal health around the world.
"I think many people aren't aware that a woman dies every 90 seconds somewhere around the globe of a preventable consequence of pregnancy or child birth," Claire Winterton says. Winterton is the executive director of the International Museum of Women based in San Francisco. She wants people to get involved in an international campaign about infant and maternal health.
"We have an online petition which will go to the United Nations that we have created with Christy Turlington Burns, the supermodel and her organization called 'Every Mother Counts,'" she says. "You can go online and add your name to that petition and say you really want to hold your government accountable, to meet the U.N. millennium development goal to reverse the amount of maternal deaths around the world."
The online petition and exhibit are available to families wherever they can find a computer. "It's also a really important opportunity for all of us to reflect on what we wish for other women around the world and what we wish for women in the generations that follow us," Winterton says.
The online exhibit runs through September. The next online exhibit will show what it's like to be a dad around the world and what they are doing to take care of their children.
