A lyrical, exhilarating and sometimes unsettling look at childbirth around the globe. Every year 130 million babies are born. Their life chances are a lottery depending on where they are born. In Europe, six babies per 1000 will die before their first birthday. In Africa, it’s 82. In America, 1 in 3 will grow up to be obese; in Cambodia, a child is more likely to become malnourished than go to high school. In Sierra Leone, one in eight mothers die in childbirth. Through the stories of mothers and babies around the world, we look at how poverty affects childbirth, childhood – and everything beyond. According to the World Health Organization, 99% of women who die during pregnancy and childbirth are in the developing world. Every minute and a half, a woman dies from pregnancy-related causes and just eight countries account for almost 50% of the world’s maternal deaths every year.
