Photography: Baby Borning Business

In Liberia, two decades of on-again off-again civil war destroyed basic infrastructure like roads, public transportation, and health facilities. Most people live far below the poverty line and while the country is slowly improving since peace came in 2003, it has a long way to go before women get adequate health care.

Currently, Liberia has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world and more than a thousand women die every year in childbirth. A new initiative by the Liberian Ministry of Health is emphasizing midwives as part of the solution to a lack of health care practitioners and to save mothers’ lives.