Woodrow Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program’s “New Security Beat”: No Mother Left Behind: How Conflict Exacerbates the Global Maternal Health Challenge
Nancy Chong, an intern for the Wilson Center’s Maternal Health Initiative and an undergraduate student at American University, discusses the challenges of providing maternal health care in areas of civil conflict. Chong writes, “From the destruction of health facilities to magnifying existing social inequalities, low-level armed conflict affects maternal fatality, utilization of maternal health services, and women’s participation in conflict prevention and resolution in many ways. … [T]he effect of conflict cannot be ignored on aspirations for a ‘grand convergence’ of health services between rich and poor countries. And it just may be that providing better care is a part of producing more durable peace” (11/7).