Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Susan Desmond-Hellmann talks about some of what needs to be done to make a reality of the foundation's aspiration to cut maternal mortality by two-thirds by 2030.    

 

“Another one of the aspirations in the letter is between now and 2030 to cut by two-thirds maternal mortality.”

 

Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellmann is CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. On January 26th, she spoke with Scientific American about the goals the international philanthropic foundation put forth in its just-released annual letter.  

 

“This has been an area that’s so important and so challenging. It is essential to think about all aspects of that. For example, one of the areas that the Foundation is now funding is family planning, so that a woman, or a young woman in particular, can decide when she wants to become pregnant, that that’s a decision she can make and she can space her children. And so I think it starts with that. We also have a big focus on nutrition, so a mom having a good nutritional status when she’s pregnant, again, very helpful. And then, again, working with local groups, with ministries of health, to make sure that a woman can deliver at a facility, where things are there available should she need the kind of care that having the baby at home wouldn’t enable her to have.”

 

For the full conversation between Gates Foundation CEO Susan Desmond-Hellmann and Scientific American editor-in-chief Mariette DiChristina, look on our website for the upcoming Science Talk podcast.