Merck: Access to Health

This partnership will reach up to 600,000 pregnant women with improved care during delivery and save as many as 10,000 lives over a five year period by improving the quality of private healthcare facilities that support a region of 75 million people. The State Ministry of Health in Rajasthan has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the partners to invest in and scale up the partnership should the pilot program be successful.

Merck announced an expansion of the MECTIZAN® Donation Program (MDP) to reach up to an additional 100 million people per year through 2025 as part of the global effort to eliminate lymphatic filariasis (LF).

Mary-Ann Etiebet, Executive Director of Merck for Mothers, writes about the importance of providing maternity care to refugee women, highlighting MfM partner Doctors of the World’s research, program, and advocacy efforts to ensure more equitable access to care.

Answers to the Big Questions with Dr. Amy Crockett and Merck for Mothers.

Watch to see how motherhood unfolds for each in this powerful portrayal of three women's journey.e

While we have seen global maternal deaths drop by 44% since 1990, women are still dying from preventable causes during pregnancy and childbirth – and not just in low and middle-income countries that lack resources. Even in high-income countries, there are women who face a much higher risk of death, or grave injury because they are poor, migrants, refugees, minorities or from indigenous populations.

An important part of our mission at Merck for Mothers is to draw attention to the urgent issues affecting maternal health for women; to help raise awareness and to deepen our own understanding of what women need not just to survive pregnancy and childbirth, but to thrive. Our partnership with TIME magazine is part of that. We are proud to be a sponsor of TIME's ongoing series, Finding Home, an indepth look at what the journey to motherhood looks like for a refugee, featuring the work of award-winning photojournalist Lynsey Addario. Our Executive Director Mary-Ann Etiebet recently caught up with Lynsey to hear more about what she learned covering this story. The following are excerpts from that conversation.

Barb Dehn is a practicing Women's Health Nurse Practitioner and a television health expert, who is known as Nurse Barb. She is a guest lecturer at Stanford University, provides OB/GYN health care for women in Silicon Valley and is an award-winning author. Barb actively provides health care information on her social media platforms and contributes content to many online sources including her blog, Nurse Barb's Daily Dose, HealthyWomen.org and The Huffington Post. Barb is certified by the North American Menopause Society and is a Fellow in the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.

Ivy Prosper is a television host, producer and speaker. She's also an advocate for the empowerment of women and for their maternal health rights. She currently works as a producer on documentary projects telling stories in Africa. She is also developing a line of handbags and accessories where a portion of sales go towards maternal health needs in Ghana.

Learn about Merck for Mothers’ work to make maternal mortality a thing of the past.