"Just like me, Ruma has 3 children. But unlike me, 2 of Ruma’s babies died just after birth."

I debated whether to start this post with numbers.

Those shocking facts that grab your attention.

Like the fact that 40 million women give birth each year without any help from a midwife or trained medical professional.

Or the fact that one million babies a year do not survive their first day of life.

Or that 18,000 children die every DAY from preventable causes.

40 million. One million. 18,000.

These figures are almost too shocking to comprehend.

But I want to make an impact on you, because I want you to keep reading and sometimes numbers just blur the lines a little as we can’t really imagine just how monumental they are.

 Just as an FYI, you should know that this post is sponsored by Save The Children Australia. But all opinions expressed by the author are 100 per cent authentic and written in their own words.

So I thought perhaps I might tell you about a young girl called Ruma who lives in Nepal.

Just like me, Ruma has three children.

But unlike me two of Ruma’s babies died in the first few days of their lives.

Ruma was married quite young, which isn’t that unusual in Nepal. She is currently eight-months pregnant with her third child.

Ruma lives on an island in the middle of a river in Nepal.

Can you picture it? It would be gorgeous wouldn’t it?

The problem for Ruma is that it is 4 hours drive away from the nearest city, and that when she went into labour with her first baby her husband was in Kathmandu.

Ruma says, “I was in a lot of pain when I was in the stretcher so all I could think about was getting to the health post as soon as possible…but then the river had risen so we had to search for a boat.”

She finally reached the health post after three hours, her beautiful baby was born but had a fever. The midwife that helped Ruma deliver her baby didn’t have any medicine to treat her and the newborn baby girl died.

Ruma’s second angel was a boy. He was premature and died on the way to the hospital.

It’s tough to compare Ruma’s life to mine in any other way except for the fact that we have both had three pregnancies.

She is so very far removed from my comfortable middle class existence. But yet I find myself holding my breath in anticipation of what will happen to Ruma’s third baby.

Her loss, of two children in the first few days of life is common in countries like Nepal. Throughout the world one million babies don’t live past day one.

In fact in 2012, 2.9 million babies died within 28 days of being born. That’s two out of every five children born that died.

And it gets worse because what isn’t included in these figures are the 1.2 million stillbirths, those whose hearts stopped beating during labour.

Sadly there is a great chance that the deaths of Ruma’s first two newborns could have been preventable.

Half of all newborns deaths that occur in the first 24 hours could be prevented. HALF.

How you ask? Well the answer is an obvious one really.

With access to adequate healthcare. With a trained midwife. With clean and safe equipment to prevent life-threatening infections. With a bag and mask to revive a baby and help them to breathe

It seems so simple.

Think about how your baby was born – the technology, the millions of dollars of infrastructure that surrounded you.

Then think about the 40 million women a year who give birth with no medical professionals at their side and the 2 million women a year who were completely alone when they gave birth.

The word to describe how incomprehensibly heartbreaking this is hasn’t been invented yet. It is beyond devastating.

But what’s important here is that this is preventable.

This is where you can throw a number back at me. This is why I wanted you to keep reading. Because this is where you can help.

Save the Children is aiming to raise $600 000 by June 30 to help provide training for midwives and much-needed medical equipment.

We get to do the easy bit, we just donate the money.

The midwives will be the ones doing the hard part – saving those babies, assisting those Mothers and halving that horrific figure of 1 Million newborn deaths on day one of life.

You with me?

If you would like to donate, you can do so HERE.

Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by using the hashtag #SAVEOneDay.

Each year, 1 million newborn babies do not survive their first day of life. More than half of these deaths could be prevented if mothers and babies had access to trained midwives and healthcare.

Save the children Australia urgently needs to raise $600,000 by June 30. This money could help train 600 midwives with the basic skills needed to save the life of a newborn baby. For more information or to give now please go to oneday.org.au