Safe Motherhood Quilt Project

Since today is Project Linus's National Make A Blanket Day, I think it's time to celebrate quilts, quilters, and all the other fine fiber artists who are helping pull the I, MOM project together--and also give nod to the wonderful Safe Motherhood Quilt Project, started by Ina May Gaskin.

The Safe Motherhood Quilt Project, as declared on their website, is "a national effort developed to draw public attention to the current maternal death rates, as well as to the gross under-reporting of maternal deaths in the United States, and to honor those women who have died of pregnancy-related causes since 1982

The quilt is made up of individually designed squares; each one devoted to a woman in the U.S. who has died of pregnancy-related causes since 1982. One quilt square is designed and dedicated to each mother's memory and may mention the date and place of death and the name of the woman. The Safe Motherhood Quilt is the voice for women who can no longer speak for themselves."

Their touching virtual quilt gallery is worth more than a few minutes of time (http://www.rememberthemothers.net/quilt/thumbnails.php?album=4), as each woman's story is given the weight it deserves. Take, for instance, a few of the most recent entries (as of 2009):

Elideth Resendiz Elideth Resendiz was 42 years old when she died on June 7, 2008, in Richmond, California. Her placenta detached from the uterus before birth, ending both her life and that of her baby. Two other children survive. Melissa Ann Barone Melissa Ann Barone died on July 19, 2009, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at the age of 28. Her death happened a few weeks after her twins’ very premature birth and death. Katya S. Czerepak-Greer  Katya S. Czerepak-Greer, 29, of Potsdam, New York, died on February 22, 2009, a few days after giving birth to her second child, Jackson. She was an art teacher.