In September 1997, I lost my aunt. In May 2008, I lost another aunt.

My aunt, a proud Sierra Leone native, and mother of four, was delivering twins when she suffered a postpartum hemorrhage that not only took her life but also the life of one of her twins. This was in 1997, when my aunt and her baby were lost forever. Her five surviving beautiful children were forced to grow up without their mother. After 23 years, this loss still feels like it was only yesterday and for many more families in my home country, it very well could have been yesterday, or even today. My family was again forced to endure the aftermath of this crisis in 2008, when a second aunt died from childbirth complications. She, too, went to deliver my beautiful cousin and succumbed to postpartum hemorrhage. Three more cousins of mine were now without their mother: left to navigate life without her loving guidance. Sierra Leone is an amazing place with incredible people where losses like this have sadly become commonplace. My people, as foreign as it may seem to the outside world, fear childbirth.

Mother - Life - Child

94% of maternal deaths occur in developing countries such as Sierra Leone with 830 women dying every day around the world from preventable causes. My aunts were two of these women. They are a statistic now but to me, their husbands, and their surviving children, they are so much more. I don’t know each of these 830 women who die each day, but I know they have families, they have children and nieces who loved them and will miss them for the rest of their lives.