Save the Children Launches WHO-Verified Maternal Crisis Teams

Guest blog by Rachel Pounds, Head of Save the Children’s Emergency Health Unit (EHU)

Save the Children’s Emergency Health Unit, now WHO-verified, delivers lifesaving maternal and newborn care in disasters worldwide. From Gaza to Mozambique, our teams provide urgent medical support, build sustainable healthcare systems, and ensure no mother or baby is left behind.

 

As leader of Save the Children’s Emergency Health Unit, I have seen firsthand how women going into labour and newborns are among the most badly affected when any disaster strikes, often left to give birth without adequate medical care and in unhygienic and life-threatening conditions.

Latest figures show that almost 800 women a day continue to die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, and in nine countries facing severe humanitarian crises, maternal mortality rates were more than double the world average, at 551 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, compared to 223 globally.

This is why I am so glad that the EHU was verified by the WHO this month as the first NGO maternal and baby specialist Emergency Medical Team (EMT) that can be deployed to health emergencies in countries across the globe.

This time last year in Gaza, we established a maternity unit, inside British charity UK-Med’s field hospital, to bridge the staggering gap in maternal healthcare— few facilities were operational, and hygiene conditions were appalling. Our team was the first surge team to deploy from Save the Children, and rapidly set up a safe, clean environment where women could access essential reproductive, newborn, and pediatric care. Our pediatric nurses began catering to wounded children, ensuring that they received appropriate pain relief, and within just a few weeks, Lana* became the first newborn delivered at the facility. When she later fell severely ill from unclean water, our team provided life-saving antibiotics. The impact was immediate and life-changing.

 

Disasters, conflicts, and disease outbreaks can quickly overwhelm healthcare systems. We saw this after Cyclone Idai in Mozambique in 2019, where entire communities were displaced. Our team set up mobile clinics and rehabilitated damaged health facilities alongside the Ministry of Health. I will never forget meeting a woman who had climbed a tree with her three children, tying herself and them there for over 12 hours as floodwaters raged below. When she finally reached our clinic, she had lost everything—but we were there to provide care for her and her children. These moments remind us why our work matters: reaching people in their darkest hours with the support they desperately need.

Countries can get overwhelmed following a disaster but people still need health care, sometimes lifesaving health care, which can be met when we deploy self-sufficient clinical capacity in the form of maternity, child and new born specialist care units or Primary health care clinics. Emergency Medical Teams, or EMTs, can provide life-saving care to those affected by health emergencies.

EMTs, like ours, provide critical, lifesaving healthcare in such crises. These teams – comprising of doctors, nurses, midwives, physiotherapists, paramedics, logistics personnel and water and sanitation specialists, are trained to respond rapidly and provide comprehensive support to local health systems. Our clinical staff are licensed to provide direct medical care, ensuring high standards as well as innovations in medical care. Our global team brings essential language skills and cultural awareness, working with Ministries of Health, local organizations, and community health workers to build long-term capacity.

EMTs need to meet WHO specifications for endorsement and to be included as part of their list of certified teams. They were set up in the wake of the Haiti earthquake in 2010 that killed more than 220,000 people, amid an international drive to set standards and criteria for foreign medical teams in sudden onset disasters. This system was first put into action in Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013.

I have worked for the EHU for nearly a decade, and I have seen our impact across multiple crise. To date, we have reached over five million people and trained 18,000 health workers. In some cases, such as in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh – the world’s largest refugee settlement housing about one million Rohingya refugees – most of the clinics we set up in 2017 are still running today. We don’t just respond to emergencies—we leave behind sustainable healthcare solutions.

Receiving the EMT certification is recognition of the specialist care needed by women and babies when disasters strike. It reinforces our ability to act swiftly in crises and provide essential care to women and newborns who would otherwise be left without support. This is more than just a milestone. It is a commitment—to every mother and newborn caught in disaster—that they will not be forgotten.

*Names changed.