12/06/2019
This winner of the 2019 Human Rights Award is an organization: "Leading Ladies for Healthy Babies."
The group was nominated to recognize and honor their work to address a fundamental of human rights at its very beginning: a healthy and happy first year of life. This group has been working without much fanfare to give young mothers and newborn infants the best possible chance for a successful pregnancy and birth, and a solid start at a healthy, long life.
The idea grew out of a 2015 summit funded by a March of Dimes grant. The summit prompted a task force, which in March 2016 evolved into the Infant Mortality Alliance with Leading Ladies for Healthy Babies the first initiative the Alliance developed.
“Leading ladies” refers to women who are at the forefront of their faith community, most often as pastors’ wives. By example, they guide a congregation’s most personal faith expression, particularly mentoring other women.
“Infant mortality” refers to the death of an infant before their first birthday, and this statistic is widely used as a measurement of overall population health and the quality of health care in a community, as well as socioeconomic status, and availability of quality health services and medical technology.
Sadly, there are significant differences in the infant mortality rate by race and ethnicity (the mortality rate for African American infants is more than twice that of Caucasian infants.), indicating the persistence of systemic racism and classism. Health inequities have negative consequences, including higher rates of African American women dying from pregnancy complications and giving birth prematurely. Prematurity is the number one cause of death for African American babies.
One of the most effective ways to eliminate health disparities and reduce infant mortality is to engage the community in developing strategies to address challenges that affect them.
Working with families, schools, policy makers and faith communities to become actively involved in identifying relevant issues, making decisions on what needs to be accomplished, and then implementing those changes, leads to success on every level.
Since their inception, the group has held numerous public events where information, services and supplies are distributed to young or expectant parents. In addition, they educate the public to increase understanding of the need for achieving equal access to care, more justice to prevent the issues that lead to poor maternal outcomes.
These leading ladies are stars in this fight for human rights for our most vulnerable women and littlest neighbors.
"Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance...."
--Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
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