Founder of Every Mother Counts to address AAP National Conference

Fashion model and Global Maternal Health Advocate Christy Turlington Burns will speak at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Section on International Child Health meeting at the AAP National Conference & Exhibition in Boston on Saturday, Oct. 15, from 4:15-5 p.m. ET. Ms. Turlington Burns is the founder of Every Mother Counts, a non-profit advocacy campaign founded in 2010 to increase public awareness of and support for improved maternal and child health.

During her presentation, Ms. Turlington Burns will screen excerpts from her film, "No Woman, No Cry." The film shares stories of at-risk women in four parts of the world - a remote Maasai tribe in Tanzania, a slum in Bangladesh, a post-abortion care ward in Guatemala, and a prenatal clinic in the United States.

"Like many women, I was excited to become a mother and loved being pregnant," said Ms. Turlington Burns. "But just after delivering my first child, I suffered a serious complication. While I had a birth team that worked quickly to manage the situation, I was shocked to learn that hundreds of thousands of women die each year during childbirth -- and that 90 percent of these deaths are preventable. This left me needing to learn more about maternal health."

Maternal and newborn health are closely related. The goal of Every Mother Counts is to help girls and women worldwide at risk of suffering from maternal mortality. All women deserve access to appropriate and well-equipped health care facilities with trained healthcare workers, but maternal mortality is a global tragedy that can be prevented.