Sierra Leone: Every pregnancy is a 'chance of dying'

Saio Marah, nine months pregnant and two days into labor, lay on a hospital bed and groaned loudly with each contraction. She had arrived at the rural hospital earlier on the back of a motorcycle, about the only public transport available in this muddy little town in the distant back-country bush of one of Africa's poorest nations. Now, in a dark and hot labor ward with rain blowing in the open windows and puddling on the floor, Marah grimaced as James Konteh slapped on rubber gloves and examined her.