Maternal health and reproductive rights

A woman who does not know what a danger sign looks like waits. She waits through swelling, through bleeding, through a baby that has stopped moving, because nobody ever told her those were the moments to go, and because going costs money, transport and somebody else's permission.

We cover what to expect through pregnancy and through the first weeks after birth, which signs mean go now rather than wait until morning, and what care a woman is entitled to and what it should cost her. That last part is deliberate. People who know what they are owed ask for it. We spend just as long on what is not true, because the myths here are specific and they have local names, and arguing with a myth you have never actually heard is useless.

The questions we get about rights and cost are the ones nobody had been able to ask anyone before, and the answers are usually simpler than people feared. What is still hard is that knowing the danger sign does not pay for the taxi. We can tell a woman when to go. We cannot yet help her get there, and that is the gap we hear about most.