Mother Health International · Uganda & Kenya
We turn the world’s commitment to midwifery care into working health systems. Clinic by clinic, midwife by midwife, across East Africa.
Our story
Every two minutes a woman dies from a preventable cause in pregnancy or birth. We already know what saves her: a skilled midwife, practicing the midwifery model of care, inside a health system that supports her.
Mother Health International builds exactly that. Our birth center in Atiak, Uganda has the best outcomes in East Africa. Now we are taking the model to government clinics across Uganda and Kenya.
Scaling the midwifery model of care could prevent up to 80% of maternal and newborn deaths. The World Health Organization has called on every country to adopt it. Our birth center has been proving it works for nearly twenty years.
Explore the proofThe problem
Each hole is a reason a woman dies in childbirth. Most funding plugs one hole at a time: a drug for hemorrhage, a device, a single training. Every other hole keeps leaking.
The midwifery model of care is different. It is a network of skilled, trusted midwives wrapped around every mother from early pregnancy through the first year of her baby’s life. It plugs most of the holes at once.
from preventable causes in pregnancy and birth.
when midwives are trained in the model and supported by a system.
Our model
Everything we do moves the midwifery model of care from a birth center in Atiak into the health systems that serve millions of families.
Transform
We partner with government clinics to implement the midwifery model of care through clinical training, mentorship, systems redesign, and community integration.
Explore
Re-orient
Most East African midwives were trained as nurses and never learned the model. We retrain practicing midwives and doctors through funded mentorship at our birth center.
Explore
Educate
Yala Yala Midwifery Training Institute graduates community midwives to international standards, with advanced clinical skills and point-of-care ultrasound.
Explore
Proven in Atiak
Ot Nywal Me Kuc, the House of Birth and Peace, was built by midwives during northern Uganda’s post-war recovery, 75 km from the nearest hospital. Today it is a birth center, a training institute, and the proof that the model works.
$55 provides a full year of life-saving, community-integrated maternal care for one person.
Give $55Flagship program
The Transforming Birth Initiative takes what works in Atiak into government clinics across East Africa, turning ordinary health centers into centers of excellence.
We start where mothers already go: public health centers in Uganda and Kenya, with ministry and district buy-in.
Midwives train at Atiak, then are mentored in their own clinic. Ultrasound, emergency skills, continuity of care.
Clinics that uphold the model become Quality Maternal & Newborn Care Centers, and training sites for the next clinic.
$100,000 establishes a Center of Excellence for an entire region.
Partner with us
Funders, educators, governments, and neighbors all have a role in making birth safe. Pick your door.
Foundations and institutional funders
Back a proven, scalable model. $100,000 establishes a Center of Excellence that transforms maternal care for an entire region.
Request the case for investmentUniversities, ministries, and clinics
Send students for clinical immersions, enroll your clinic in a two-year mentorship, or bring ultrasound training to your midwives.
Start a partnershipEveryone who believes birth should be safe
$55 provides a full year of community-integrated maternal care for one person. Every gift goes directly to midwives and mothers.
Donate todayHelp make real change for mothers and midwives in East Africa by donating today.
In every $1 we spend:
“The reason midwifery outcomes are so good is the model of care. Most midwives in East Africa were trained as nurses and never learned it. So we retrain the workforce, then help whole clinics transform around it. That is how you plug every hole at once.”
Rachel Zaslow
Founder and midwife, Mother Health International
Partners and funders
