Today is the International Day to End Obstetric Fistula.

Half a million women worldwide are affected by obstetric fistula — a debilitating yet almost entirely preventable childbirth injury in which a tear in the birth canal leaves women leaking urine or feces.

This serious birth complication devastates and isolates the world’s most marginalized, impoverished women and girls enduring war, climate disasters, and violence. UNFPA is deploying midwives to deliver emergency obstetric care to help prevent the physical and social damage of this injury. But our humanitarian response is limited by recent funding cuts — and the lives of survivors hang in the balance.

Today, on the International Day to End Obstetric Fistula, your vital support can make motherhood safer for the world's most vulnerable women and girls. What’s more, your gift today will make double the impact as our gift match has been extended.

So many women are at risk of experiencing this debilitating — and preventable with gifts from supporters like you — injury. Will you make a lifesaving gift today that will be matched to double your impact toward helping end obstetric fistula for good?

Give a 2X-matched $40 gift to support a midwife through ~~two~~ FOUR deliveries

MAKE MY $40 GIFT

Give a 2X-matched $100 gift to provide ~~a midwife~~ TWO midwives with lifesaving training

MAKE MY $100 GIFT

Give a 2X-matched $375 gift to cover an TWO obstetric fistula repair surgeries

MAKE MY $375 GIFT

Give another amount to end obstetric fistula

MAKE ANOTHER GIFT

Obstetric fistulas cause women both physical and psychological trauma that can last a lifetime if untreated. That’s why preventing and repairing fistulas is not only a health issue, it is a human rights issue.

UNFPA works all over the world to end obstetric fistula and make the world a safer place for moms like Jacqueline in Malawi, who developed obstetric fistula at age 16.

Jacqueline endured a traumatic and prolonged birth that caused a painful fistula that could not heal. She was soon abandoned by the father because he did not want to deal with her condition.

Devastated and heartbroken, Jacqueline returned to her parents. Thankfully, her mother remembered that there was a woman in the community who talked about a similar condition. Jacqueline and her mother sought out the woman, who was a UNFPA-implemented fistula ambassador, and referred Jacqueline for repair surgery.

“I don’t know what could have happened if I didn’t come here,” Jacqueline said after the surgery. Now, two years later, she is healed and looking forward to the future.

Thanks to the compassion of supporters like you, UNFPA is bringing lifesaving care to survivors like Jacqueline and training midwives around the world to help mothers safely deliver their babies and prevent obstetric fistula from occurring.

Our generous donors have supported 140,000 fistula repair surgeries in the last two decades and in the last five years, donors have provided 12,000 women and girls with social reintegration support.

But every year, 50,000 to 100,000 women develop this devastating childbirth injury. We’re working to eliminate obstetric fistula worldwide by 2030 through training and deploying midwives, and providing medical supplies and repair surgeries that give women and girls their lives back.

Will you deliver a gift that creates a lifelong impact today to end obstetric fistula worldwide? $40 supports a midwife through two deliveries and a single repair surgery costs $375. Any amount you give will be matched and can help make motherhood safer for women and girls around the world, bringing them hope through crisis, no matter what.