In too many communities, childbirth remains tied to an unspeakable fear. With the right interventions, we can banish that fear.

Investment is vital to community well-being, write Marc and Craig Kielburger.

Craig filed in out of the hot Kenyan sun, alongside Kipsigi women carrying jugs of clean water. In the corner of the mud hut, a two-day-old boy and his railthin mother clung to life. Craig visited the new family while in Kenya overseeing our projects.

He thought of how he’d held his wife’s hand as she gave birth to their first child. Mother and son — born a healthy eight pounds, 10 ounces — quickly regained their strength in hospital.

Mothers and children around the world are on our mind as the G7 Summit in Charlevoix, Que., fast approaches. With its focus on child and maternal health, the June 8-9 summit will be a chance to set standards and launch initiatives that will protect women and their babies — if we learn the right lessons.

Last month, UNICEF released a report and a top 10 list that no country wants to crack: nations with the highest rates of infant mortality. Malawi was conspicuously absent. While the global infant mortality rate has dropped 50 per cent since 1990, Malawi — a low-income country with a largely rural population — has reduced their child mortality rate by more than 70 per cent.

Their interventions contain lessons for all countries.

Every year, medical breakthroughs promise to revolutionize health care in developing communities. But according to Dr. Rumishael Shoo, chief of health for UNICEF Malawi, lowtech interventions have saved the most lives there.

“It’s entirely a matter of scale,” he explains. “These are wellestablished, well-researched interventions that are delivered to all.”

For Malawi, where 85 per cent of people live in the countryside, that means access to basic medical care. The government invested heavily in frontline posts, hiring thousands of new health workers and bringing treatment to more than 10,000 of the nation’s poorest villages. In 2000, half of the women in the country gave birth with the support of a midwife, nurse or doctor. Now, that number is well above 90 per cent.

More medically assisted births means more opportunity for education, and, if need be, intervention. In cases of premature birth, Kangaroo Mother Care is an alternative to costly neonatal wards and incubators. In these open units, pediatricians monitor development while mothers use skin-to-skin contact to help at-risk newborns regulate their own body temperature. In all, Kangaroo Care costs less than $5 a day per child and saves 32,000 babies a year.

“Countries that bend the curve on child and maternal health are ones that invest on the community level,” Shoo says.

Any country could replicate this method, investing in mobile health units and frontline clinics to ensure that all communities have access to care.

The rate of infant mortality among some First Nations populations is four times the national average in Canada. These communities face the same issue of uneven distribution and lack of access that we see around the world. In too many communities, childbirth remains tied to an unspeakable fear. With the right interventions, we can banish that fear.