Liya Kebede Quotes

Child marriage and pregnancy … is the biggest cause of teenage female deaths in the world.

Talking to women about birth can be polarizing.

There are women who literally squeeze a baby out of their bodies or get cut open in major surgery, have a human being, the next generation of the human race pulled from their bodies, and within a couple of weeks have to go back to work, because if they don't, they can't pay their bills. Something's wrong with that.

We should recognize that women become mothers the moment they are pregnant.

Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth to a child. She must be found and stopped.

There's a saying in Africa: 'To find out you are pregnant is to have one foot in the grave.'

For millions of girls around the world, motherhood comes too early. Those who bear children as adolescents suffer higher maternal mortality and morbidity rates, and their children are more likely to die in infancy.

Liberating women from repeated childbirth can liberate them from poverty as well.

… men never think, at least seldom think, what a hard task it is for us women to go through this [childbirth] very often. God's will be done, and if He decrees that we are to have a great number of children, why we must try to bring them up as useful and exemplary members of society.

When 1970s feminism hit the United States, women demanded the right to natural childbirth and to have their husband or another support person in the delivery room. My mother gave birth to me during this time.

Across much of the developing world, by the time she is 12, a girl is tending house, cooking, cleaning. She eats what's left after the men and boys have eaten; she is less likely to be vaccinated, to see a doctor, to attend school.

It is incumbent upon us to respond to the unique needs of military women and ensure they receive proper care during the first year following childbirth.

Centuries ago it may have been difficult for pregnant women and their children to get proper nourishment, probably leading to smaller - and therefore shorter-lived - adults.

I was married when I wasn't quite 14 and had four babies by the time I was 18.

We should work to guarantee that there is a midwife or health worker by every woman's side during childbirth.

I have been poor and I wanted to document poverty; I had lost a child and I was obsessed with birth; I was interested in politics and I wanted to know how it affected our lives; I am a woman and I wanted to know about women.

I know of no country in the world that has passed a law specifically denying a woman's right to choose where she intends to give birth.

Dying in childbirth is something that's not new; it's been going on for ages, and so it's not something that people focus on; it's not something that gets funded a lot, and it's exactly for that reason that we are losing mothers all the time, and we have kids with no mothers.

If a woman can, by careful selection of a father and nourishment of herself, produce a citizen with efficient senses, sound organs and a good digestion, she should clearly be secured a sufficient reward for that natural service to make her willing to undertake and repeat it.

All the really pretty girls get pregnant.

The leading cause of death for girls 15 to 19 worldwide is not accident or violence or disease; it is complications from pregnancy. Girls under 15 are up to five times as likely to die while having children than are women in their 20s, and their babies are more likely to die as well.

Maternal health remains a staggering challenge, particularly in the developing world. Globally, a woman dies from complications in childbirth every minute.

The lack of access to proper nutrition is not only fueling obesity, it is leading to food insecurity and hunger among our children.

Women are nothing but machines for producing children.

We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby.