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Published on Tuesday, 10 July 2012 10:09

Last Updated on 10 July 2012

Monica Costa

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Pregnancy is the biggest killer of teenage girls worldwide. Every year one million teenage girls die or suffer serious injury, infection or disease due to pregnancy or childbirth, according to our new report launched today. That’s why we need world leaders to act at a crucial Family Planning Summit on 11 July 2012.

Save the Children recently published a new report, Every Woman’s Right: How Family Planning Saves Lives, which highlights the fact that girls under 15 are five times more likely to die in pregnancy than women in their 20s. Babies born to younger mums are also at far greater risk and around one million babies born to adolescent girls die every year – babies are 60% more likely to die if their mother is under 18.

In many countries it is normal for young girls to be married off and quickly fall pregnant before their bodies have sufficiently developed, according to the report.

More than 200 million women around the world who don’t want to get pregnant currently don’t have access contraception. This results in 82.3 million unintended or mistimed pregnancies in developing countries every year.

Check their latest advert featuring women remembering their first time and urging government for sex education in schools.

The London Family Planning Summit offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to help girls and women make decisions over when and whether to have babies.

Save the Children is urging world leaders to increase the global availability of contraceptives. But while providing more condoms, injections and pills is crucial, it’s not enough. So too is making sure that women are empowered to decide when to have children through education and the law.

London Mums can actually help!! If you want to actively support Save the Children you can become one of their campaigners www.savethechildren.org.uk