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Each year, anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 women worldwide are affected by obstetric fistula — a tear in the birth canal that leaves women leaking urine or feces. It occurs when a woman experiences prolonged labor without access to emergency care. And, it’s one of the most dangerous birth injuries: 90% of obstetric fistula survivors have a stillbirth.

Obstetric fistula is almost entirely preventable — yet it continues to debilitate the world’s most marginalized, impoverished women and girls.

The toll of the injury is devastating. In addition to severe health complications, including frequent infections, survivors are often shunned by their communities and abandoned by their partners, unable to work or go to school, and driven deeper into social exclusion and poverty.

UNFPA is deploying midwives around the world to deliver emergency obstetric care and prevent the most morbid impacts of this injury. But our humanitarian response is only half funded — and the lives of survivors hang in the balance.

Today, on the International Day to End Obstetric Fistula, we’re asking you to make a gift (2x-matched) to deliver lifesaving care to pregnant women and ensure every childbirth is safe: [[link removed]]

Donate $40 to support a midwife through two deliveries [[link removed]]

Donate $100 to provide a midwife with lifesaving training [[link removed]]

Donate $375 to cover an obstetric fistula repair surgery [[link removed]]

Donate another amount to end obstetric fistula [[link removed]]

Mebrat was nine months pregnant when armed conflict broke out in her Ethiopian village. She went into labor as people fled their homes and armed forces set up blockades.

After four days of labor, she risked being caught in the crossfire to reach a nearby health center. Only two health workers remained to help Mebrat deliver her baby. But by then her child was dead.

Her devastation did not end there. For months, Mebrat suffered as her fistula left her unable to control her urine and feces.

Mebrat had never heard of a fistula until she finally accessed care ten months later. Now, she is still recovering at Hamlin Fistula Center, receiving essential treatment and repair surgeries.

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After an agonizing experience, Mebrat feels grateful for the care received and holds hope for her prompt recovery and future: “I want to work with the women in my community to advocate for safe motherhood. No woman should endure what I have been through”.

But we need your help to make Mebrat’s dream come true. Today, tens of thousands of women like her in war-torn, remote, and impoverished regions around the world are facing the same nightmare.

Friend, will you deliver a gift with double the impact today to end obstetric fistula worldwide? We’re only halfway to our donation goal, and women like Mebrat are counting on your support. [[link removed]]

DOUBLE YOUR IMPACT [[link removed]]

Ager is from a small rural community. At the age of 12, she was given to a husband, much older than her, in a family-arranged marriage. She experienced five pregnancies that all ended with stillbirths. When her due date arrived in her sixth pregnancy, her family took her to the hospital by ambulance. Even with emergency surgery, her baby did not survive.

In the days following her harrowing, sixth delivery, Ager started leaking urine. It flew without her control, and her dress was consistently soaked wet. Ager shared the following with us about her darkest moments, "I wished I died as my babies. I was in so much distress and shame."

But Ager soon learned of a UNFPA-supported treatment for her Fistula at Mettu Hamlin Fistula Hospital. It was a long road, but she has found recovery and hope again.

“I did not believe I would be cured, but thanks to God, I feel like I have been reborn. I have no words to thank the doctors, nurses, and everyone who supports this godly work. I am now eager to mix with my family as a woman with full dignity,” she said.

SUPPORT THIS WORK [[link removed]]

Across Ethiopia, UNFPA is working with partners to support efforts to end fistula by deploying over 212 midwives to deliver emergency obstetric care in facilities with staff shortages.

In 2023, midwives provided more than 240,000 sexual and reproductive health services across affected regions. Additionally, more than 200 metric tons of reproductive health supplies and equipment, including lifesaving maternal health medicines, have been delivered to hospitals, health centers, and mobile clinics to support safe births.

This is the care you’re helping deliver when you donate to end obstetric fistula. Thank you for taking action and delivering the gift of hope to Mebrat, Ager, and all women and girls who need it.

— USA for UNFPA
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