Every Mother Counts

Below is post from Christy Turlington Burns, founder of the non-profit organization, Every Mother Counts and Director/Producer of the documentary film "No Woman, No Cry". In this article, originally published on Huffington Post, Christy Turlington Burns writes about her experience of returning to Bangladesh for the first time since filming the segment on BRAC's Manoshi project aimed at improving maternal health in the slums of Dhaka. We started our day at Dhaka Medical College's teaching hospital where we learned more about one of the most common pregnancy-related morbidities (or disabilities) that poor women endure in childbirth; obstetric fistula. An obstetric fistula is when a woman suffers an obstructed labor, ultimately tearing a hole in her birth canal. Fistulas lead to incontinence of urine, feces and often cause infertility. Equally as devastating is that most women with fistulas are ostracized by their families and communities.