Giving Compass' Take:

• Global Citizen highlights the work of Paolo Patruno, an Italian photographer who is trying to shed light on maternal health in sub-Saharan Africa through the power of images.

• How can we put such passion into action? Funding across a wide variety of underlying issues — nutrition, education, social protection, and gender equity — is a step in the right direction.

• Here's more on meeting crucial neonatal needs in sub-Saharan Africa.

An estimated 130 million babies are born every year around the world. That’s about 356,000 per day. Sadly, with all that new life comes a vast number of maternal deaths.

About 830 women die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related complications every day — 99% of these deaths occur in developing countries, with more than half of them in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Paolo Patruno, 46, is a social documentary photographer based in Bologna, Italy. In 2011, he started a long-term project called “Birth is a Dream,” a photo series that seeks to shed light on maternal health in sub-Saharan Africa.

Patruno was working as a project manager for an NGO in Malawi when he met Rachel MacLeod, a senior clinical midwife who worked in the labor ward of the Bwaila Hospital, in Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital city. MacLeod introduced him to the issue of maternal health in Africa, and his series came to life.

Patruno didn’t just want to snap a few photos — he became invested in raising awareness on what he considers to be an underreported topic.

“The main issues that are behind this matter are the same [no matter where you are in Africa],” Patruno told Global Citizen.

Read the full article about what pregnancy looks like around sub-Saharan Africa by Jackie Marchildon and Olivia Kestin at Global Citizen.