ABOUT US: Letter from the President

Ideally, reproductive health is the shared responsibility of both partners. In reality, women bear the children, are most often the ones who use a contraceptive method, and are physically more susceptible to sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS. As a result, women are the recipients of the majority of services Pathfinder supports: family planning, prenatal and postnatal care, treatment of the complications of unsafe abortion, and prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS. We support these services knowing that women are the most vital link to the health of their families, and when women prosper, so do their children, spouses and partners, and communities.

Today, over 600,000 women in developing countries die from pregnancy-related causes each year. Women in developing countries have a 1 in 65 risk of dying from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes during their lives, compared to the 1 in 2,125 risk of women in developed countries. This risk also extends to children. By some estimates, 90 percent of babies whose mothers die during or soon after their birth will not live to see their first birthday. Older children do not fare much better. Without their mothers, they often face reduced access to nutritious food, education, and health care.

Family planning is an important tool for reducing these risks. Family planning prevents many maternal deaths by allowing women to space births so that their bodies have time to recover. Birth spacing also benefits babies. Children born at least three years apart tend to weigh more and be healthier at birth. Because teenage mothers are more likely to die in childbirth than women in their early twenties, family planning saves lives by allowing adolescents to avoid the high risks of teenage pregnancy. Family planning also decreases the likelihood that a woman will ever seek out an unsafe, illegal abortion.

At the same time, we have found family planning and reproductive health projects that are linked to initiatives that provide women and adolescents with education and income-generation opportunities have an even greater impact on families and communities. When a woman has earnings to contribute to the household, her decision-making ability within the household increases, and when the earning potential of women is recognized, families are more likely to invest their resources in educating their daughters, as well as their sons. While the relationship between education and childbearing is complex, women with more education tend to wait longer to have children, to have fewer children, and to be better equipped to provide for the health of their children.

Pathfinder works to advance the state of women's health in countries around the globe through a wide array of innovative projects that provide women with the means to avoid unwanted pregnancies and to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS. We accomplish this by teaching men to act as partners in family planning, by building women's self-esteem and training them to negotiate for condom use with their partners, by creating adolescent-friendly services, and by improving the quality of available reproductive health services, in some cases at a national level.

Improving the health of women and families often involves encouraging people to take advantage of available health services. In Bangladesh, we support events around a series of national and international health days that publicly reinforce healthy behaviors. On Bangladesh's seventh National Immunization Day, parents brought more than 2.3 million children to clinics for polio vaccinations, compared to 1.2 million just two years earlier. On Safe Motherhood Day, 16,700 mothers received prenatal or postnatal care and immunizations.

On this Web site, you will read highlights from Pathfinder initiatives around the world and hear the stories of women and men who are uniting their communities in efforts to improve reproductive health and wellbeing. Pathfinder is proud to support the work of thousands of people like these, individuals who really are changing their world for the better.

Daniel E. Pellegrom

President

Back to top