华盛顿邮报 地球上生孩子最要命的地方(1)（在线收听）

This week, I have been thinking a lot about pregnancy, about the fear that comes with getting pregnant, especially when it's unplanned, about the different paths that people take to becoming a parent, about the choices they have and the choices they don't have.

这周，我一直在思考很多关于怀孕的事情，关于怀孕带来的恐惧，特别是在意外怀孕的时候，关于人们成为父母的不同途径，关于他们拥有的选择以及无法拥有的选择。

Of course, in the U.S. right now, we are talking a lot about how those choices could change in the very near future.

当然，现在在美国，我们经常谈论这些选择在不久的将来会如何改变。

But today we wanted to visit a place where, for various reasons, women have very few choices and where having a baby can mean risking your life.

但今天我们想参观一个地方，在那里，由于各种原因，妇女的选择很少，在那里生孩子意味着要冒生命危险。

Last year, reporter Danielle Paquette visited a state hospital in Kono, Sierra Leone.

去年，记者丹妮尔·帕奎特访问了塞拉利昂科诺的一家州立医院。

She had been following a teenager named Susan Lebbie over the course of her pregnancy, and Susan had just given birth to her son, Evan.

她一直在关注一个名叫苏珊·莱比的少女怀孕期间的消息，当时苏珊刚生下儿子埃文。

She's 17, and she grew up fearing pregnancy because she lost her own mother when her mother was giving birth to her.

她17岁了，从小就害怕怀孕，因为母亲在生她的时候去世了，她失去了自己的母亲。

Her mother bled out. It was terrible.

她母亲失血过多而死。这很可怕。

And she just sort of never really wanted to get pregnant.

她只是从来没想过要孩子。

Susan was terrified of pregnancy and birth, in part because Sierra Leone consistently ranks as one of the deadliest places on Earth to have a baby.

苏珊害怕怀孕和分娩，部分原因是塞拉利昂一直是地球上生孩子最要命的地方之一。

The numbers alone just shocked me.

数字本身就让我震惊。

The way researchers measure the maternal mortality rate is the number of women who die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth per 100,000 births.

研究人员衡量产妇死亡率的方法是按照每10万次分娩中因怀孕或分娩而死亡的妇女人数计算。

In Europe, it's 8. In Sierra Leone, it's 1,120.

在欧洲，这个数字是8。 在塞拉利昂，这个数字是1120。

Oh, my gosh. Wow.

哦, 我的天啊。 哇。

And I was talking to some doctors in the country who led me to an even more alarming statistic, which is that one in 20 women in Sierra Leone will die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth over the course of their lifetime.

我与该国的一些医生进行了交谈，他们让我得出了一个更令人震惊的统计数据，那就是塞拉利昂每20名女性中就有一人会在一生中死于怀孕或分娩。

I couldn't believe it. I wanted to know so much more.

我简直不敢相信。 我想知道更多消息。

How in 2021, 2022, is this still happening?

到2021年，2022年，这种情况还会发生吗?

Today we talk about women's reproductive health care in Sierra Leone, the risks that women face during pregnancy, and how survival is often just a matter of luck.

今天我们讨论塞拉利昂妇女的生育保健问题，妇女在怀孕期间面临的风险问题，以及活下去往往只是运气的问题。

In Sierra Leone, women don't have a lot of options when it comes to having a baby.

在塞拉利昂，女性在生孩子方面没有太多选择。

Susan Lebbie either had to have this baby she never planned to have and she was frankly terrified to have or she could try to have an illegal abortion.

苏珊·莱比要么不得不生下这个她从未计划过的孩子，而且坦白说她很害怕生孩子，要么她可以尝试非法堕胎。

Women in Sierra Leone sometimes turn to black-market pills without medical supervision, or they will look for some kind of concoction made by a traditional healer.

塞拉利昂的妇女有时会在没有医疗监督的情况下求助于黑市药物，或者她们会寻找由传统治疗师制作的某种混合物。

Health officials told me that unsafe abortions in Sierra Leone account for 3% to 4% of maternal deaths.

卫生官员告诉我，塞拉利昂的危险堕胎占孕产妇死亡的3%到4%。

And they caution that that estimate is conservative because it's hard to track how many women are having these illegal procedures.

他们警告说，这个估计是保守的，因为很难追踪有多少女性进行了这些非法手术。