Hi, it's Jennifer Garner here, guest hosting today on TED Talks Daily.

Here's a talk from the TED Fellows community given by a maternal health innovator who is

massively scaling maternal health, education, and medicine delivery in India.

Through digital platforms and partnerships,

Aperna Hegdi is tackling one of medicine's greatest challenges

and serving women who need it the most.

Anita died in my presence while giving birth to life.

She bled to death and lost her child. The irony was that she had accessed care.

In the first trimester of pregnancy, she had visited the antinatal clinic of the hospital in Mumbai

where I was doing residency, but over four hours awaiting in the hot, sweaty, dingy, overcrowded clinic.

Just to get a minute with me, a harried, overworked, resident doctor meant that she never came back.

Only to die in labour months later, I was wracked with guilt.

If only I had counseled her about the danger signs,

why she needed to access regular care,

would she and her child have survived?

She did not die due to a terminal condition.

She died because of underlying anemia,

an easily treatable, preventable condition.

I saw these stories dailyable, preventable condition. I saw these stories daily. Systemic preventable

problems resulting in mothers and children dying in the most unjust of circumstances. In the next

one hour, three women will die while giving birth somewhere in India. Two children under age five die every minute in India.

I am a practicing neurogynecologist, but very early in my medical training,

...