Saving Mothers

Saving Mothers is dedicated to reducing maternal morbidity and mortality around the globe using low cost, high-impact interventions. We are currently active in Kenya, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, and New York City. The Elevate Prize funding would be used to scale our global maternal health programs and grow our local mPOWHER programs to bolster education of community health workers (CHW) in New York and beyond.

Our passion for women’s health and rights drives our programs. The staggering racial disparity in maternal health in the U.S. has informed our most recent efforts in New York where black women are up to 3-4x more likely to die during pregnancy/postpartum compared with white women. We have brought our global training model back home where our mPOWHER program now trains CHWs in New York to recognize maternal health risks in the home and communicate more effectively to clinics and hospitals.

The goals of this particular program are to develop the CHWs to be brokers between their communities and the hospitals. We have successfully done so in Guatemala and it is clear how effectively CHWs can advocate for and identify high risk women during pregnancy and postpartum.

My name is Tara Shirazian. I started Saving Mothers over a decade ago when, as an OBGYN, I was able to see firsthand the risks women face around the globe due to lack of safe maternal and reproductive health care. It has been my privilege to create programs for women that decrease their chances of death, improves their health outcomes and allows their voices to be amplified in countries where women’s rights are often silenced. Health is a basic human right. I often consider myself a voice for the voiceless, and for those women who may feel they've been forgotten. At Saving Mothers, we see you and we will be your champion.

My goal is to eliminate all the preventable causes of maternal mortality that kill 300,000 women around the globe by creating and implementing low-cost, high impact medical programs that save women’s lives. Saving Mothers has the medical knowledge and expertise to fashion these programs and the experience of creating effective change. My broader vision is to ensure that our programs are everywhere for women, used by local organizations, Ministries of Health, and other NGOs.

Despite the WHO's Sustainable Development Goals - global maternal mortality remains unacceptably high. According to the WHO, approximately 295,000 women died either during or following childbirth in 2017, with the overwhelming majority of these deaths (94%) occurring in low-resource settings, and 71% occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa alone.  Worse yet, it is widely recognized that most of these deaths were preventable, and could have been avoided with access to some form of skilled healthcare during pregnancy and/or childbirth. Aside from the heinous nature of these senseless deaths, the socioeconomic ripple effects for those left behind are enormous. For the numerous orphaned children, effects include death, social isolation, and forced premature entry to the labor force. For the widowers, effects range from grief and depression to the economic impact of loss of income from the deceased.  This crisis is exceedingly vexing to public health experts, as the solutions to prevent or manage birth-related complications are well known. The persistent challenge, however, is the lack of access to skilled care in low-resource settings. While approximately 90% of births in most high income and upper middle income countries are attended by a trained provider, this figure is only 50% in lower income countries.  

Our approach is to create low cost, high impact maternal health programs that are taught in local communities as a sustainable mechanism for decreasing maternal mortality. We believe in the power of educating and uplifting local front-line workers (birth attendants, community health workers) to build them into critical assets within health care infrastructure, empowering them to be sure that both they, and the women they care for, are heard. We create and field test all of our own programs, we iterate and improve upon them, recognizing language and culture, and we collect data and publish results. We hold ourselves accountable for our programs and results so that women everywhere can rely upon them and trust that they have been developed with rigor and excellence in mind.

This is the health care every woman, everywhere deserves.

Since 2009, Saving Mothers has trained thousands of front-line health workers. From illiterate birth attendants to head physicians and ministers of health, we believe that every health worker is a valuable part of the healthcare systems that women rely upon. We have created a School of POWHER for birth attendants which has create a cycle of sustainable, quality health care for tens of thousands of women.

We have created models of prenatal and delivery care from Africa to Central America, which have encouraged thousands to access prenatal care and increased visits to hospitals and clinics by over 30%, we have offered reproductive choice in the form of IUDs placed at delivery to eliminate the need to come back. Our programs are low-cost/high impact, sustainable programs. Our team spends countless hours innovating and designing, ensuring each program will be relevant and accessible to its community. We consider language and culture, and incubate it in the local context by field testing with our local providers. Only when our programs endure multiple iterations are they ready to be scaled and more broadly applied.

Through our Saving Mothers outreach programs and training we have reached tens of thousands of women. Our birth kits alone have supported 10,000 births around the globe. In Guatemala, our traditional birth attendant (TBA) training program has trained 60 TBAs who have supported more than 7,000 births. In Kenya, our maternal continuum of care program has increased hospital deliveries by 30%. We have also enrolled over 700 pregnant women in rural West Pokot Kenya to identify those at risk for pre-term delivery and change obstetric outcomes. Globally, we have trained over 500 health care workers in safe maternal and gynecologic surgical care including physicians, nurses, community health workers and birth attendants. We have inserted over 1000 IUDs for reproductive care.

Hundreds of volunteers have worked with us over the last 10 years. We offer short-term internships and long-term fellowships to college students, public health students, and medical students. Nationally, numerous Saving Mothers student chapters have allowed us to raise awareness and actively engage and mentor the next generation of global health leaders.

Through our sister organization, Mommy Matters (mommymatters.com), we continue to educate our following of more than 5000 people on maternal health and women's health topics and products.

Saving Mothers is dedicated to designing medical innovations and programmatic solutions to achieve SDG 3--reduction of the the global maternal mortality ratio. Training and educating local healthcare providers can empower communities in low-income, low-resource regions and improve lasting access to quality care that women deserve--SDG 5.

Our model has already demonstrated efficacy--it works. But in order to expand the network of women we serve locally and globally, we need to scale up and apply our model programs (maternal continuum of care program, mPOWHER program, and TBA program) to more communities around the world. Our strategy for the next 12 months is to:

• Scale up our maternal continuum of care program in Kenya.
• Apply our TBA training program from Guatemala to Kenya.
• Grow our mPOWHER program in NYC, collect data and expand in New York
• Hire a full time Director of Grants and Partnerships to continue to grow Saving Mothers.
• Continue to network with other local NGOs to use our models in additional global settings--SDG 17.
• Continue to grow the Mommy Matters brand to educate, raise awareness, and provide sustainable funding to Saving Mothers while providing women with novel maternal and women's health products.

Saving Mothers is financially limited in ability to scale its program as our current fundraising revenue is maximized in current global and local settings. Winning the Elevate Prize would be a game-changer for our relatively small organization. Investing in our existing global sites and at home in New York would expand our ability to reach more women. Saving Mothers would also undoubtedly benefit from needed resources to employ a Director of Grants and Partnerships to create both short- and long-term fundraising opportunities. Also vital to the mission of Saving Mothers is further investment and growth of our sister social impact company, Mommy Matters. Having resources available to hire an individual with expertise in business development would be invaluable to push Mommy Matters toward sustainable growth and profitability and provide an evergreen funding source for the non-profit work itself.

Recognition of our work through the Elevated Prize would expand visibility and marketing around our organization and increase our network of grassroots support. Moreover, the distinction of the Elevate Prize would boost recruitment of individuals with business expertise for Mommy Matters. While we have extensive global programming and medical expertise, business experience would be a critical addition and resource for Mommy Matters.

Organizations such as Saving Mothers need amplification to succeed. Our medical expertise puts us in a unique position to develop global women's health programs and then understand their impact through outcomes research. While many organizations fund raise to support the work of others, we fund raise to implement the programs we design and can adapt our work to fit the needs of the communities in which we work. This powerful distinction is what makes us truly unique--this is centerpiece of our brand. However, this distinction is not always apparent to those outside of the global health space or to those considering donation to a women's health organization. Growing awareness around the global women's health crisis, our approach to eliminating preventable maternal death, and our ability to implement solutions is crucial to developing brand awareness for Saving Mothers. While we have expertise in medicine, we lack true expertise in marketing and social media growth. We would love to showcase the work we do regularly through a larger platform. Building brand recognition could cultivate awareness of our social impact company Mommy Matters and allow the its success to come full circle and support support the non-profit work.

Our leadership teams are organically racially and ethnically diverse.  We develop close partnerships with each of our global health sites, creating leadership teams specific to each country in which we cultivate programs. These in-country teams are comprised of local leaders, many of whom identify as women from their respective indigenous communities, who we train to manage, nurture, and evaluate our women’s health programs. Local leaders from each community we serve are incorporated into the site-specific leadership and are a critical part of the success of our programs, facilitating community involvement and, ultimately, ownership and sustainability of these programs.

Global women’s health care is my passion. I have created and evaluated programs in global women’s health since 2009. At each academic hospital system where I have worked (Mount Sinai and NYU), I created and led the Divisions of Global Women’s Health. Moreover, I teach global women’s health to MPH graduate students, medical students, and OBGYN resident physicians. Saving Mothers was founded in parallel with my academic work in 2009. It is with confidence and conviction that I pursue my passion. Training as an OBGYN uniquely positioned me to create this non-profit with the mission to end preventable maternal mortality, and offer equitable access to reproductive health and rights for pregnant people around the globe.  

The ten OBGYNs comprising our medical board have diverse global health experience including global outreach and program evaluation. We work as a team, discuss every medical program, compile data/evaluation, and publish our work in conjunction with local site-specific leadership. While tracking outcomes can be extremely challenging in low-resource settings, I constantly push to do so because we endeavor to follow each patient to best understand the impact of our programs and then adapt them to best meet the needs of our communities. 

Sometimes, it feels as though I have been fighting a lifetime for basic maternal and reproductive rights.

I have presented data to government leaders and ministries of health to argue for:

• Basic human rights
• The idea that the value of a mother is a health indicator for government, family and community
• Universal HPV vaccine for children in Dominican Republic
• Safe birth kits and universal maternal health care with the Speaker of Parliament in Uganda
• Contraception access with the local health minister in Guatemala
• Expanded global women's health funding with leadership of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Every opportunity is a moment to impact change and to use my
platform to educate, raise awareness and create opportunities to
eliminate preventable maternal death. It can be challenging--what I consider to be basic human rights are not recognized as such in many parts of the world and government leaders do not budget for maternal and reproductive health. Every day is a fight for equitable health care. I push forward the Saving Mothers agenda because I am uniquely positioned to do so and I feel the responsibility.  Despite the many obstacles, I have witnessed firsthand the successes.

Yes. Please see links below.

https://savingmothers.org/1419...

I have been fortunate to do a great deal of media in women's health and I use the platform to raise awareness.

Please see:
https://www.wwcofny.com/media for listing of various media appearances.

Some published studies:

Shirazian T, Ascher-Walsh Charles, Brodman M. Global women’s healthcare in obstetrics and gynecology: A model for resident programs. Contemporary Ob/Gyn. October 2012.

Ditzian, L, David-West, G, Maza, M; Hartmann B, Shirazian T; Cremer, M. Cervical cancer screening in low and middle-income countries. Mount Sinai journal of medicine. 2011:78(3):319-326.

Shirazian T, Faris B, Fox N, Freidman F, Rebarber A. The Lifestyle Modification Project: Limiting Pregnancy Weight Gain in Obese Women. Journal of maternal-fetal & neonatal medicine.2016:29(1)80-84.  

Frey, MK; Gertz E; Shirazian, T. Cervical Cancer screening in rural Guatemala. Gynecologic oncology. 2015:137:71-7  

Hernandez S, Oliveira J, Shirazian T. How a Training Program is Transforming the Role of Traditional Birth Attendants From Cultural Practitioners to Unique Healthcare Providers: A Community Case Study in Rural Guatemala. Frontiers 2017:5(111):1-8

Shirazian T, Smith C, Fisher J. Challenges to National Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Program Implementation in Developing Countries Obstetrics & Gynecology 2017:129:86S-87S  

Hernandez S, Oliveira J, Chumil J, Jones L, Shirazian T. Impact of standardized prenatal clinical training for traditional birth attendants in rural Guatemala. Healthcare June 2018

Liebermann, EJ; VanDevanter, N; Shirazian, T; Frias Guzman, N; Niles, M; Healton, C; Ompad, D. 'Barriers to Cervical Cancer Screening and Treatment in the Dominican Republic: Perspectives of Focus Group Participants in the Santo Domingo Area'. Journal of Transcultural Nursing: Official Journal of the Transcultural Nursing Society. 2019 ():1043659619846247- (# 3858872) 

Ricklan, S; Cuervo, I; Fox, N; Rebarber, A; Shirazian, T. Two Decades of Interventions in New York State to Reduce Maternal Mortality: A Systematic Review.’ Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine. December 2019

Ahmed Z; Shirazian, T Article: A global strategy to increase uptake and acceptability of LARC in a low-resource setting.  International journal of gynaecology & obstetrics. 2020 Apr ; 149(1):109-111

Liebermann N; Van Devanter N, Guzman NF, Ompad D, Shirazian T, Healton C. Parent-Level Barriers and Facilitators to HPV Vaccine Implementation in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic J Community Health 2020 Oct;45(5):1061-106

Hernandez S, Oliveira J, Shirazian, T. Adapting antenatal care in a rural LMIC during COVID-19: A low literacy checklist to mitigate risk for community health workers. International journal of gynaecology & obstetrics

Becoming an Elevate Prize winner would substantially contribute to our ultimate goal, which is to serve more women, and “ignite” more effective maternal health programs around the globe (through our innovate, incubate and ignite model). My global vision is to demonstrate that our effective maternal and surgical programs can be applied to new settings both in the United States and globally.

Specifically, this means expanding current programs at our global sites, applying our model programs to new sites through global health partners, and evaluating the effectiveness of our U.S. mPOWHER program and expanding its reach once that program is optimized. This program addresses the disparate and inequitable levels of maternal mortality for women of color in urban centers in the United States.

We would also use awarded funds to hire an experienced grant writer to improve our yield from grants and raise awareness about the non-profit.

(1) The New York Women's Foundation: We are currently
partnering with this organization to improve maternal health outcomes
for marginalized women in the inner city. We also partner with a community organization, Healthy Families.

(2) The TCS NYC Marathon:
We have been a charity partner of the marathon since 2015, this relationship has grown to be one of our largest sources of revenue.

(3) Pharmaceutical/Medical Device Companies:
We regularly partner with a number of companies including Boston
Scientific, Butterfly Medical, Karl Storz, Ethicon and Cooper Surgical,
who either generously underwrite travel expenses for our medical
missions or donate surgical equipment and medical supplies.

(4) Ministries of Health, regional government in each country- Guatemala, Kenya, DR. We have created and instituted standards of maternal health care, developed improved programs in each country, we have trained providers at very level (birth attendants-physicians) who work within the local health infrastructure

(5) Doximity: largest community of healthcare professionals in the country. They help us raise awareness and donate funds to our programs

(6) Student chapters: High Schools, Universities, Medical Schools. Our Students Save chapters raise awareness and funds for our work. We mentor and educate the next generation of global health leaders.