As a Global Maternal Health Advocate, I get to travel the world quite a bit, meeting individuals and visiting programs with tremendous potential and incredible vision to improve the quality of life for countless others.

If we truly value humanity, life, and all that it represents in its highest form, then we need to do all that we can to promote quality of life over the quantity of life.

If Mom is healthy, then her child is more likely to thrive, more likely to have a better quality of life and, ultimately, better able to provide for his or herself.

Every Mother Counts is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making pregnancy and childbirth safe for every mother. We inform, engage, and mobilize audiences to take action and raise funds that support maternal health programs around the world.

I have healed myself through sharing my birth story as well as others' stories in my film 'No Woman, No Cry,' and in various writings and talks about maternal health.

There are disparities in accessing quality maternity health care in most every country, and most all health systems could and must be improved upon if we want to create healthy families who will thrive.