‘Stay Safe Mama’ – Providing life-saving reproductive health services for pregnant women across Yemen
UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, launched the ‘Stay Safe Mama’ project with the generous contribution from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The project aims to improve access to life-saving reproductive health services for women of childbearing age across nine governorates in Yemen.
UNFPA estimates that there are nearly 3 million women of childbearing age in acute need in Yemen, of whom some 450,000 are likely to be pregnant and deliver within the year, among them an estimated 67,000 women risk complications with immediate danger to their lives if urgent life-saving maternal care and medicines become inaccessible.
Within the scope of the project, UNFPA is supporting 158 health facilities by upscaling and equipping maternity units with reproductive health kits, medicines, supplies and would expand to cover 300 health facilities. Maternity units will be supported with skilled health workers from obstetric gynaecologists to midwives. In addition, midwives at the community level will be supported to set-up home-based clinics. These will play a critical role in helping pregnant women in remote areas who lack the means to reach the nearest hospital with the care and support they need during pregnancy and childbirth.
In a country with one of the highest maternal mortality ratios in the Arab region, the ‘Stay Safe Mama’ project will play a vital role in reducing maternal deaths and related illness among mothers and their newborns.