Welcome to the World

A lyrical, exhilarating and sometimes unsettling look at childbirth around the globe.

Every year 130 million babies are born. Their life chances are a lottery depending on where they are born. In Europe, six babies per 1000 will die before their first birthday. In Africa, it’s 82. In America, 1 in 3 will grow up to be obese; in Cambodia, a child is more likely to become malnourished than go to high school. In Sierra Leone, one in eight mothers die in childbirth.

Through the stories of mothers and babies around the world, we look at how poverty affects childbirth – and everything beyond.