The International MotherBaby Childbirth Initiative: a human rights approach to optimal maternity care.

This article focuses on the belief that pregnant women should have the basic human right of humane and evidence-based maternity care and states that millions of women in both developed and underdeveloped countries are not currently receiving appropriate maternal care. It provides excerpts describing birth experiences in small rural villages of India and Papua New Guinea that demonstrate violations to the basic human right to humane health care. In addition it describes the International MotherBaby Childbirth Initiative (IMBCI): 10 Steps to Optimal Maternity Care whose purpose is to improve care throughout the childbearing continuum in order to save lives prevent illness and harm from the overuse of obstetric technologies and promote health for mothers and babies around the world.