DeLauro Offers Amendment to Expand Aid for International Child, Maternal Health Programs

Washington, DC – Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) today offered an amendment to the FY13 State-Foreign Operations Appropriations bill that would provide $39 million for the United Nations Population Fund. The funding would be available solely for preventing and treating cases of obstetric fistula, promoting the end of female genital mutilation and ensuring safe childbirth and emergency obstetric care in underdeveloped countries. Despite garnering 24 bipartisan votes, the amendment was defeated 24-24 by Republicans who sought to deny critical care to women around the world. Below are her remarks as prepared for delivery:

"Mister Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk, amendment number 1, which would provide $39 million in this bill for the United Nations Population Fund or UNFPA. This funding would only be used for programs and activities that prevent and treat cases of obstetric fistula, promote the abandonment of female genital mutilation, and carry out activities to provide and distribute equipment, medicine, supplies, and expertise, including safe delivery kits and hygiene kits to ensure safe childbirth and emergency obstetric care.

"Efforts to fund child and maternal health programs and to end barbaric practices like genital mutilation are critical not only for female empowerment, but also sustainable global development. Countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East cannot escape extreme poverty when half the population is neglected. And with that extreme poverty comes threats to our nation's security.

"And with only a small investment like this one, we can have a profound impact on maternal health around the world. Every two minutes, a woman dies in childbirth. In sub-Saharan Africa, women are 136 times more likely to die than in developed countries – a woman there has a 1-in-22 chance of dying because of pregnancy or childbirth over her lifetime. That risk is over 200 times greater than the risk for women in the US.

"The onset of labor marks the start of a high-risk period for both a mother and her child that lasts until 48 hours after birth. During this incredibly short period of time, an estimated 150,000 maternal deaths, 1.6 million neonatal deaths, and 1.2 million stillbirths occur each year. Nearly all occur in low- and middle-income nations, especially sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. "Less than half the women in these regions deliver in hospitals. The scarcity of electricity, clean water, transportation, and trained health professionals contribute to these alarming figures, as do traditions and beliefs which may also prevent women from seeking and receiving life-saving care in time.

"Here in the developed world, we have tools at our disposal to mitigate these numbers – to prevent the complications and deaths that all too often are a risk for women. Tools such as emergency obstetric care; drugs; blood transfusions; and even simple care like warmth, feeding, hygiene, and the early treatment of infections. This amendment would allow UNFPA to make these interventions available to more women in the developing world as well.

"This funding would also be used to reduce obstetric fistulas, a horrible and preventable consequence of prolonged, obstructed childbirth faced by more than two million women, with more than 50,000 new cases a year. We could dramatically reduce the incidence of obstetric fistula with access to reproductive health services and safe delivery services.

"The consequences of an obstetric fistula are life-shattering: the baby usually dies. The mother left with chronic incontinence in addition to nerve damage and psychological damage, which often leads to abandonment and ostracism from her community. Current programs can only repair roughly ten percent of new cases and less than one percent of existing cases each year – and with less funding for UNFPA even fewer women with this condition will receive the treatment they so desperately need.

"Without the type of aid UNFPA makes available, poor, rural women and their babies remain at the highest risk of poor pregnancy outcomes. These outcomes are closely associated with the health of the children and family even after maternity. Infants in Nepal are 52 times more likely to die if their mother perished in childbirth than their peers whose mother survived.

"This funding would be used to help women in the developing world have safe deliveries, without awful and preventable consequences like obstetric fistulas, to fight the practice of genital mutilation – suffered by three million women and girls a year in Africa alone – and to help save the lives of mothers and children both.

"I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment."