麻豆社

Giving birth can be fatal in many countries because of the lack of basic hygiene, including clean water. 1:5 newborn deaths in developing nations could be due to dirty water, and the UK charity WaterAid has been running an appeal to help some 130,000 mothers and their families around the world.

It's against this background that British photographer, Jenny Lewis, went to Malawi to photograph women who had just given birth. She called her project One Day Young because the babies were just one day old. Jenny met the women at a health clinic in Simulemba, in the central district of Kasungu. Serving over 70,000 people and delivering around 90 babies a month, it's difficult to keep the centre clean with no running water, only four toilets, crumbling bathrooms and no sterilisation equipment.

During her week in Malawi, Lewis witnessed both the euphoria of bringing life into the world and the concerns of giving birth and living without clean water. She told Bola Mosuro about the women and their babies.

(Photo: Baby taken in the first day of birth, Kasungu, Malawi)
(credit: WaterAid/Jenny Lewis)

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