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• Saving the Lives of Mothers
 Learn more about misoprostol, a low-cost, highly effective drug that helps prevent mothers dying from post-partum hemorrhage (a leading cause of death).
• Participate in GWANC’s Global Maternal, Infant and Child Health Campaign!
 At the end of 2007, the Global Women’s Action Network for Children will launch a large global campaign to dramatically raise public awareness about the tragedy of preventable maternal and infant mortality. Sign up now to be part of it and to lend your voice to this urgent cause.
STATISTICS:
•According to a United Nations Report published in 1997, out-of-marriage births have increased more than 50 per cent in the last 20 years in developed countries.
•According to UNICEF’s 2007 Human Development Report, an estimated 14 million adolescents between 15 and 19 give birth each year.
Single Mother-to-Be
Andrea Huber
AustriaGALLERYCONVERSATION
Four years ago, when I was twenty-one, I conceived a child with a man that had been my boyfriend of two years. This was not an intentional decision we made and I did not find out I was pregnant until two weeks after we separated.

My life came to a halt; I felt as though everything I had worked so hard for would crumble if I chose to have my child.

The odds seemed to be against me in every way. I was young and without a partner to love and support me; I was a full time student; I was financially unstable, with neither a house nor a social network of friends who could understand what I was going through. The situation brought me to tears, but I knew I had the strength to establish a life for both my child and myself. And I did.

This series of photographs documents and reveals the private moments I experienced alone in my bedroom in the early mornings or the late afternoons, often in a state of emotional delirium. I was constantly faced with emotional abuse from my baby’s father, and I had to drop out of school and work to pay for my pregnancy. While all my friends were out enjoying a “normal” social life for our age, I was at home by myself not knowing how I was going to get through this situation. The process of taking these photographs was an immense creative and emotional release.

Pregnancies are often idealized; it is rare that the true issues are brought to light and exposed to a broad range of people. People don’t openly address or speak of the misfortunes and challenges of going through a pregnancy alone. The tone and use of light in my photographs speak to those various internal states; the photographs reveal a psychological portrait specific to that moment. Working with the photographs after the pregnancy, I could see the person I used to be, and was able to fully realize the strong and beautiful woman I had become.
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Pregnancy
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katie l hebert
United States
Latest Comment
i'm pregnant with twins girls and i'm due december 25 07
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