Early childhood care and development takes many forms, from maternal care in the home to formal educational programs.
To accomplish that, the groups are calling on aid agencies and multinational corporations to fund programs that support maternal care.
"It's still, thank heavens, quite rare, " said Debra Bingham, executive director of California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative.
This is one of a number of projects where new communication technology is used to improve maternal health care in developing countries.
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Perhaps even more importantly, they take the message out to new communities about the importance of family planning and proper maternal health care.
For Stachel, the solar suitcase is only part of a bigger mission to improve maternal health care and lower mortality rates in developing countries.
"We didn't set out to transform maternal health care around the world, but it feels like this has grown to something so much bigger than I had ever imagined, " she said.
Because humans have such long childhoods, and are so dependent on parental (particularly maternal) care during that period, a woman who kept reproducing until she died would leave a lot of unviable orphans behind her.
In those months maternal health, breastfeeding and infant care, not agriculture, matter most.
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As a consequence of not getting prenatal medical care she lost her life to maternal mortality in the hands of a traditional birth attendant.
Governments should also legislate to get employers to offer both maternal and paternal leave, and provide or subsidise child care.
Experts agree that maternal deaths could be prevented if women had access to basic medical care during pregnancy, delivery and immediately after childbirth.
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