Read National Geographic’s artical on the dangers of giving birth without a professional 

Last year, 303,000 women around the world died from pregnancy and birth-related complications. A large number of these deaths took place in developing countries. The training of and availability of midwives has become more crucial as our population increases. Each year 50 million women in the developing world give birth with no professional help. Trained midwives are needed here in the US and in underdeveloped countries around the world to positively impact the current mortality rates in mothers and their infants.

Joy of Life donates to Mercy in Action yearly to support the professional medical help needed in developing countries. Mercy in Action is a non-profit organization that focuses on the crisis in Maternal/Newborn/Child health care worldwide. They have established and funded free birth centers for poor families in the Philippines since 1992, and to date more than 13,500 babies have been delivered free of charge for the poorest of the poor in Mercy In Action’s Birth Centers. Tens of thousands of lives have been helped and healed by the Mercy in Action Midwives and the midwives that they have trained.