from Reuters By Maria Luisa PalominoCUZCO, Peru - Pregnant with her seventh child, Benigna Condori hiked for hours through Peru's Andes mountains to a health clinic that mixes modern medicine with indigenous practices like giving birth standing up.After five births at home, Condori, 37, decided to have her latest two babies at one of hundreds of new clinics that have started allowing women to deliver on their feet rather than on their backs.The hope of the program is to cut high rates of maternal mortality by encouraging poor, mostly indigenous Peruvian women to place themselves under the care of professionals.Condori said she did not want to take any chances and that hiking through the mountains was a safer bet than having her baby at home."I'm here because I know a woman who almost...
from IPP Media Tanzania By Deodatus MfugaleMseko sat in front of his humbo house, a hut really, his eight children around him. The children were aged between two and 12 and none of them had started school, even the eldest one, a girl.At 12 years old, there was no hope that the girl would see the inside of a classroom. It was very likely that Mseko would marry her off to get a few shillings in dowry in order to keep things going.His wife was not at home. She had gone to her in-laws in another village to deliver their ninth child and Mseko remained hopeful that all would go well.There was no dispensary in the village and the nearest was 50 kilometres away.It was late morning and the family had only eaten some boiled cassava for breakfast which would also pass for lunch.With a family of...