Hi everyone! I'm running the 2022 Bank of America Chicago Marathon, and fundraising for an amazing organization called Every Mother Counts. If you know me, you know how passionate I am about women's healthcare and health equity, in both the United States and globally. I wanted my first marathon to stand for something larger than myself, and I found this fantastic organization, whose work and mission resonates with my heart.
Childbirth is the oldest bodily process, and yet the miracles of modern medicine seem to fall short in women's health. Many women cannot access appropriate care, are facing long-term health consequences after childbirth, and are dying due to labor complications every day. Worse yet, this problem is pervasive worldwide, and for different reasons: in Tanzania and Haiti, lack of experienced providers, especially in rural areas, mean women who experience emergencies may not be able to access care. In Guatemala, Indigenous Mayan women are more than twice as likely to experience severe complications or death in childbirth than non-Indigenous women. In the United States, over-medicalization and a high cesarean rate are detrimental to care. We are one of two countries in the world with a rising maternal mortality rate, and have the worst MM rate in the western world.
These problems are all unique, and thus, each requires their own unique solution. Every Mother Counts works to target each of these specific health disparities by partnering with grassroots organizations in several different countries, including the United States, to invest in solutions through providing funding, resources, and grant making. Each organization EMC partners with works to empower women, spotlight local voices and expand care for women. EMC also mobilizes and advocates from the streets to the Senate, and fights for all women, everywhere, to have a safe and healthy pregnancy and childbirth. They work with community leaders in several countries to ensure a positive experience for prenatal care, as well as helping women in their first years of motherhood. The work that EMC does is powerful and humbling, and actively allows more women to access quality care.
In the past ten years alone, they have been responsible for investing $21 million for public education and community engagement, received over 100 grants, helped approve 2 US federal maternal health bills that are now laws, and impacted over one million women, providers, and community health workers. Whether expanding midwifery knowledge, nutrition services, access to health centers, legal aid, doula access, or nursing guides, EMC provides and funds a wide range of services.
No donation is too small. Here are some examples of what your money provides:
$12.57 is one-tenth of the cost for a motorcycle that a community can use to transport a woman to a health clinic or hospital in southwest Uganda.
$32 can provide essential antenatal and delivery supplies and equipment to care for one woman in Karatu, Tanzania.
$50 can pay for five hours of legal counseling for victims of maternal health rights violations in India.
$120 can provide one low-income woman in central Florida with four childbirth education sessions on breastfeeding, nutrition, self-care and newborn care.
Some other fun ways to donate are…
$6.43- that's one penny for every mile I'll run during training!
$16- one dollar per week of training!
$26.2- a dollar per mile on the big race day:)
If you’re interested in reading more about the great work EMC does, check out these links below!
https://everymothercounts.org
https://everymothercounts.org/films/
Thank you all for reading my many paragraphs<3 Making medical care more accessible to women and promoting safety in women's health is profoundly important to me, and my hope is to be an agent of change and continue to work on these issues for years to come.
In the time that it takes to run a marathon, 100 women around the world will die in childbirth: these are preventative casualties, tragedies that resonate deep in communities for years. Together, let's help decrease that number.
I appreciate any donation possible, and will be thinking of you all in the streets of Chicago this October!
Much love,
Grace<3
