Two regions within Kenya, Mandera and Isiolo, have made significant strides in reducing their rate of maternal mortality cases. Both counties employed similar tactics, such as improving facility quality, increasing the number of healthcare workers, and training local community volunteers to advocate for ante-natal care. Among other metrics, Mandera now records 588 deaths per 100,000 live births (down from 3,795), and Isiolo now has 57 facilities (up from 47) to make healthcare more accessible.

Expecting mothers, especially young ones, can often feel scared and unprepared about the pregnancy process. Maternity meeting groups help them gain more support and knowledge about their future pregnancies.

Sweden has a reputation for being one of the most socially-progressive and gender-equal countries in the world. This article breaks down the different policies that Sweden has become so famous for and looks at its myriad of effects on citizens. Author Irin Carmon concludes that this case study tells us that working towards gender equality will be long and arduous and not always perfect, but entirely possible.

Colorado views the cycle of poverty as being propelled by unplanned pregnancy. This led to their bipartisan supported funding program for birth control, that is especially useful in rural areas.

Women in Indian Country and across the nation face higher rates of maternal mortality due to lack of accessible health care, but an initiative that started in New Mexico are now teaching indigenous women on reservations how to become doulas in order to fill the gap. The training and education offerings empower the women to eliminate the barriers they face by taking their health into their own hands.

Family planning is crucial to fighting against poverty. However, many women cannot afford contraceptives. The United Nations Fund for Population Activities is now supporting the Zimbabwe government to provide women with affordable services supporting reproductive health.

To combat high infant mortality rates, rural Louisiana invested money and resources on providing public health nurses, gave Medicaid-eligible pregnant women nurses to assist them through pregnancy and the first year after birth, also began promoting long-acting reversible contraception. In two years, the region halved its infant mortality rate.

The Anabah Maternity Center, is one of the few maternity hospitals in Afghanistan. It’s also free and staffed entirely by women. “Since opening, they have treated over 226,000 women and helped birth 38,000 children.”

Bangladesh’s child and maternal health statistics are improving thanks to a combination of factors including more skilled birth attendants, better awareness of hygiene and nutrition, high vaccination rates, and expanding access to contraceptives and family planning. Even the rapid rise in telephone access plays a role, allowing families to call for help in emergencies.

Mi, Co-Madre, and Spacioss are all women-only working spaces in Mexico city. Together, around 400 women have attended these spaces. The aim of these coworking spaces is to provide support for females and help them success by giving them access to childcare facilities, workshops, and networking opportunities. They also hope to help more women successfully secure venture funding, and become industry leaders, who lag behind men. We want to have this space to support each other, from self-esteem through to connecting with banks supporting women starting a business.”

Stigma stands in the way of safe sex practices. A start-up in Nigeria called Slide Safe is addressing the problem by offering at-home STI test kits. Supplies are delivered in inconspicuous packaging. Customers can also order contraceptives and access online support - all while remaining anonymous.

In Kentucky, sex education offerings in rural districts is often inconsistent across schools. The “Sexy Sex Ed” workshop aims to provide students with information and resources about consent, safety, and anatomy. “If you provide the basic necessities for young women in public schools to get through their day, they can do anything else,” the founder of the workshop says. “You empower them to do anything else if you meet their basic needs.”

A mobile health project in Ethiopia gives any health worker with a smartphone access to the information they need to deal with emergencies during childbirth. Now it's being scaled up to reach 10,000 health workers across Africa and Southeast Asia by 2017.

Small towns in Japan like Hamada are recruiting single mothers in an effort to boost their declining population, and care of their aging one. They recruit single mothers by offering them jobs at the local nursing homes, paying them while they get trained, covering their moving costs, part of their rent, and a offering them a used car.

After studying in the U.S. and observing the prevalent amount of information about STD’s on university campuses, two Iranian women decided they wanted to focus on sexual health in Iran, where sex is a taboo subject. They started a sexual health website for Farsi speakers, and run sex-ed workshops in Iran. “They also run a nongovernmental organization — registered in the US as RAH Foundation and in Iran under Ctrl+S. They have an Instagram account with over 12,000 followers.”

Many unskilled workers in Tanzania are women and, due to gender inequality, they are often disregarded and live with economic hardship. Oxfam Tanzania has a reality show that raises awareness of women farmers. The winners of the show go use their notoriety to promote women’s rights and improve the lives of other women farmers.

Pregnant women at the US-Mexico border are often living in hard conditions and facing obstetric violence at public hospitals or being pushed into c-sections at private clinics. 'Parteras Fronterizas' offers an alternative, it is an organization of two midwives who provide care for pregnant women individually or in groups.

Colorado causes a large decline in teen pregnancy and abortions by implementing free, long-term birth control to prevent pregnancy. While demonstrating massive success, its continuity is in the air considering the ongoing fight over health insurance at the federal level.

Text4baby is a free service that sends text messages to pregnant women, and new mothers to provide them with useful tips to keep themselves and their babies healthy. This solution involves many different types of organizations such as for-profit health care providers, nonprofit community groups, wireless carriers, and government agencies. This program shows how you get a country — with all its diverse institutional strengths — to work as a team.

A Buffalo, New York clinic provides a space for both abortions and natural births. In looking at the experiences as a continuum, rather than as juxtiposing sides, the hope is to change how people think about the birth experiences.

Uganda has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in Africa, but a unique mobile health clinic is helping to reduce the rates of conception. Marie Stopes’ tuk tuks brings health care, sexual education and contraceptives to women in poor communities.

Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) Clinic is taking a youth centered approach towards teaching reproductive health. Their methods, which include having youth days, hiring youth peer counselors, and providing private rooms for youth to discuss their sexual health, allow them to reach teenagers. “As a result, their uptake of contraception has increased.”

Family planning, including access to contraception, is the key to reducing population growth. Not only does family planning therefore reduce poverty and environmental damage, it also saves money. “If you think family planning is expensive, you haven’t priced babies,” says Nicholas Kristof.

Project Last Mile has for months been successfully flying birth control, condoms and other medical supplies to rural areas of Ghana on 5-foot-wide drones, expanding access by completing that final mile of delivery.

In the Philipines, contraception has been hard to find resulting in many parents without money to feed their children, unsafe abortions, and poor maternal health. A new reproductive law aims to change this by allowing contraception in clinics to help women take control of their reproductive systems.

Compared with other developed countries, the United States has a higher rate of teenage pregnancy. However, Colorado has collaborated with foundations, private donors, and has taken advantage of Obamacare’s coverage to offer free long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) for several years. The program providing LARCs has contributed to a drop in the teenage abortion rate, the teenage pregnancy rate, and fewer children born in poverty, all while being a cost-saving measure for taxpayers.

The Myanmar-based organization, Strong Flowers, is providing men and women with sex and gender education. Teaching such classes in a notoriously conservative culture can be challenging, but founder Dr. Thet Su Htwe and her curriculum on gender roles, menstruation, gender-based violence, and reproduction have been welcomed.

Reducing the cost and increasing access to long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARC) improves family planning outcomes for patients attending Title X clinics. With an initial infusion of philanthropic funds, Colorado’s Title X health clinics lowered the cost of IUDs and LARCs. The program then became sustainable through an expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Under the current administration, restriction to Title X programs put into question the applicability of Colorado’s model in neighboring states.

In the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica, a non-profit is donating IUDs to women, acknowledging that the lack of access to contraception and family planning services is part of a cycle of poverty for many women and families. So far, paired with education about the process and based off of similar programs in the U.S. and other countries, organizations have helped 60 women receive IUDs.

Through ‘child spacing’ strategies, Nigerian health centers have helped women gain greater autonomy and have increased planning about the size of their family. Nurses discuss child spacing with women during antenatal visits and provide options regarding use of contraception.

In Nepal, a revolutionary volunteer program called the “Female Community Health Volunteers” has led the country to drastically decline the number of women that die giving childbirth. Over 50,000 volunteers look after pregnant women and inform them of how to take care of themselves. “Between 1991 and 2011, it has seen an 80% decline in the number of women dying in pregnancy, during labour and after childbirth.”

With the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act, the issues of birth control access and reproductive rights have become increasingly polarized and volatile. Some states are taking it upon themselves to improve access to birth control, without the federal mandate, through policies such as allowing pharmacists to re-prescribe certain types of birth control, and to distribute up to 12 months of birth control at a time, which has been proven in some cases to increase a woman's likelihood to use birth control, as it reduces costs and time for the patient.

Making reproductive health care a part of a woman’s primary care expands opportunities for proactive family planning. Delaware nonprofit, Upstream, partners with health care systems to increase access to information and contraceptive options. Upstream provides training sessions in women’s reproductive health care for people working across the health care system. The nonprofit remains independent by sustaining itself through private donations and grants.

Fabella Hospital in Manila is overrun with women in labor or recovering, it exemplifies the overpopulation of the area due to a lack of contraception and family planning access. The Philippines’ Reproductive Health Bill hopes to change this by allowing contraception to be available at public health places and allowing family planning services at these facilities.

A Colorado program reduced the state’s teen birth rate by 40 percent by providing young women with long-acting reversible birth control.

Colorado has seen a dramatic decrease in teen pregnancy rates after a privately funded program worked to offer intrauterine devices (IUDs) at little or no cost to low-income women. The program, combined with other factors, is being partially credited with helping Colorado see a decrease in both teen birth rates and teen abortion rates, although funding is in jeopardy.

Women in the Philippines have been coming to this small clinic in a Manila slum for years to get affordable birth control, something frowned upon in this largely conservative Catholic country.

A doctor in Papua New Guinea finds that involving men in family planning is the key to reducing maternal mortality.

From 2001 to 2011, New York City's teen pregnancy rate decreased by 27 percent as a result of increased access to contraceptives. Public schools started providing Plan B and condoms to students.

New mothers are often overwhelmed once they leave the support of the hospital and find themselves home alone with a newborn. In Sweden, a new law that allows the other parent to take a month off from work to help with infant care has shown promising results in reducing maternal stress and improving overall health.

In Nigeria, a project known as IntegratE is gaining traction as a means to improve access to and understanding around family planning. Specifically focused on increasing contraceptive coverage for women, this program trains health workers – not just hospitals, clinics and pharmacies – to become Patent and Proprietary Medicine Vendors and Community Pharmacists in order to make access easier, especially for teenagers and young adults.

Providing access to family planning and health services in addition to contraception leads to a reduction in unplanned and teen pregnancies. Colorado’s Family Planning Initiative has contributed to the state’s steep drop in unintended pregnancies and abortions during the past decade. The initiative trains healthcare workers, enrolls community partners, and uses outreach to normalize conversations about family planning.

Statistics show that black women do not have their pain taken as seriously as white women, which is a contributing factor why some expectant black mothers are choosing to hire doulas for their pregnancies. The doulas do more than help with childbirth – they provide resources to the mothers leading up to the birth as well as hold health care practitioners accountable for their biases.

Making the services of midwives accessible to displaced mothers living in refugee camps requires training and trust. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the government of Bangladesh are working to support clinics and train individuals who wish to work as midwives in the midst of the Rohingya refugee crisis. Providing women in camps with quality reproductive health requires not only the mentorship of international experts, but also personal efforts to gain the trust of women by local professionals.

Cooperation between state public health and religious institutions expands access to family planning resources for women. In areas of Rwanda where the Catholic Church operates some of the only healthcare centers, the Rwandan government has circumvented the prohibitive cost of building new facilities by partnering with the Church. Although the Catholic institutions refuse to provide access to birth control, they have agreed to refer women to small governmental health clinic outposts that supplement the Church’s care by distributing birth control.

Uganda has some of the highest fertility and HIV prevalence rates in the world. Yet the government has banned comprehensive sexuality education in schools, and parents feel uncomfortable talking about the taboo subject. So Chicken & Chips, a television show about puppets, was created to educate the country’s young people about sexual and reproductive health.

The Nigerian state of Oyo has a modern Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (mCPR) of 24%, which is the highest in the country compared to the national average of 10.8%. This can be attributed to family planning services brought to citizens through a fruitful partnership between government efforts and outside partners like nonprofit Marie Stopes International Organization of Nigeria (MSION). Since 2013 MSION has helped bring an influx of new family planning information and media outreach, improve clinic facilities and services, offer counseling for pre- and postnatal care, and much more.

Medical professionals travel to remote areas of Nigeria with little access to family planning or maternal health care to hand out resources such as condoms or birth control and to train villages' Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA) on updated safe birth practices. The team, called the PeachAid Medical Initiative, has reached over 30,000 women and 400 TBAs through medical outreach to rural communities since 2015. The work at large is meant to address the high maternal death rate in Nigeria.

In many cultures, women are discouraged from discussing personal health issues and sexual concerns and the doctors they consult often lack a full understanding of this context. By providing support to patients and training to medical professionals, organizations throughout the greater Philadelphia area are "eager to help doctors close the gap" in their service to diverse communities.

To reduce unplanned pregnancies, Delaware "embarked on an ambitious experiment" that worked to eliminate barriers that prevented women from pursuing alternative forms of birth control, such as cost and convenience. After two years, rates of unplanned pregnancies decreased by 15 percent.

Multi-purpose field clinics can offer a one-stop public health service for nomadic communities. In the northwest of Kenya, temporary Kimormor sites combine essential health services for nomadic families and their livestock. In a region where migration poses a constant challenge to public health and childhood nutrition, the Kimormor sites offer a range of services by brining family planning, vaccinations, as well as veterinary and other services to locations accessible to nomads and their livestock.

In order to reach a pastoralist community with health services, a mobile health clinic called the Kimormor has been deployed in northern Kenya. Treating both people and livestock, the Kimormor has provided family planning, antenatal care, and child health services to this community.

Several researchers around the U.S., backed by the National Institutes of Health, are exploring the efficacy of providing contraception and counseling in the same locations as medication-assisted treatment for addiction as a way to curb the huge number of unintended pregnancies among women with opioid addictions. The results have not yet been published, but the goal is to make it easier for those who often don't usually access health care to get contraception in a fragmented system.

South Africa is looking to tackle their HIV epidemic by changing the perception around preventative measures such as the PrEP prevention pill. Desmond Tutu Foundation’s PrEP program focuses on marketing the PrEP pill to those with a high risk for contracting HIV and so far has distributed the medication to 12,000 people.

Botswana stands out for its rapidly falling fertility rate; a complex set of factors, including increased access to comprehensive education and contraception, is driving the falling rate. The country's family planning programs are far-reaching, providing services in even rural areas of Botswana, and giving women more control of their reproductive health and choices.

Technology is being used in the medical industry to bridge gaps often created by health insurance companies' reliance on reactive rather than proactive care. From hearing loss to family planning, entrepreneurs are finding success in "walking the line between medical firm and tech start-up."

Popular in some countries and catching on in the U.S., community health workers fill gaping holes in care. The workers help curb health care costs by preventing complicated disease and emergency room visits.

Aid Access is the first company to send abortion pills to women who cannot access health services in the United States. The company conducts online appointments before sending the drugs. Women on the Web has done this work internationally for years, but the service was not available in the United States.

Though the overall poverty rate has been dropping in recent years, rural communities in Uganda still lack many basic resources, including access to healthy food, toiletries, and economic opportunity. The Network of Women in Agribusiness and Development was founded by women to empower and support their sisters through educational initiatives, agricultural training, and the provision of items such as pigs and fruit trees to help them break the cycle of poverty.

In many rural villages in Northern India and Nepal, long-standing cultural norms have relegated women to subordinate positions in marriage and minimal educational opportunities, stifling the social, agricultural and economic development of entire communities. But with the NGO World Neighbors' work to increase female literacy and help initiate locally-controlled savings and credit groups, these areas' female residents have become a more empowered component of local development and progressive change.