(Guest blog from the director of "The Edge of Joy", originally posted on the PBS NewsHour website)

In the time it takes to read this post, somewhere in the world a pregnant woman will have started hemorrhaging and her baby might soon be motherless. One thousand women die every day trying to bring new life into the world, and this toll is what drew me to shoot my documentary film, The Edge of Joy.

I encountered many of the heartbreaking and hopeful stories that underpin this global tragedy, but it was only through the people, the doctors and nurses of Nigeria that I was able to tell them. The roughly one dozen Nigerian doctors and midwives I worked with closely over the course of making the film, didn't push agendas, or act as obstructionists when I asked tough questions or wanted to follow story lines to their natural conclusions.

Nigeria is better known for corruption and oil production than as the vanguard of fighting maternal mortality, but this small close-knit group of men and a handful of women trusted me not to create an indicting portrait of pregnancy and childbirth in their West African country.

Documentary filmmaking is an art, not a science, and at times during the making of this film, the process was challenging. I always kept my questions dignified and did my reproductive health homework so I could ask informed questions in hospitals and in the communities.

Getting permission to film in such sensitive settings requires government approval, a process that Habib Sadauki, the second obstetrician/gynecologist to be trained in the Nigerian state of Kano, helped me through.

After many meetings with the Ministry of Health and a mutual understanding that I would have a "minder" assigned to me while filming in the north, I was given permission to film in tertiary hospitals and primary health centers.

What I didn't know at the time is that the then Minister of Health Babatunde Osotimehin, recently appointed executive director of the UN Population Fund, had approved the access himself. During his tenure as minister, his office approved some ground breaking research about postpartum hemorrhaging.

I caught up with Osotimehin in May of 2009 at a health conference in Los Angeles. Our scheduled time to sit down and talk on camera kept being pushed back, so I made the bold move of taking over the role of the waitress at the café where he was enjoying a coffee.

Handing him a glass of water, I introduced myself as the filmmaker who had been documenting maternal health initiatives in Nigeria. I kept going on and on and he stopped me and said something to the effect of "you are persistent and persuasive just like they say" and with that got up, and came to sit with me for more than an hour.

We discussed safe motherhood, community leadership for better healthcare and, at the conclusion of our interview he shook my hand and said "your access is continued, enjoy your next trip to Nigeria." My field director and I began breaking down the equipment and she asked why I looked dazed. I said I was not even aware our access had to be renewed.

The freedom to shoot in medical settings was crucial to documenting the harsh realities of giving birth in Nigeria. In the film, blood became a ubiquitous character: women were losing too much of it, there wasn't enough of it when you needed it and midwives were always trying to keep it from flowing.

"Hemorrhage requires that you stop the bleeding and you repair the blood loss. If you don't repair (replace) the blood loss the woman will die," Sadauki told me.

We documented a case of severe bleeding where the midwives were able to manage a patient's hemorrhage with a drug and saline until her husband found a pint of blood and she received the transfusion in time to save her life.

And there are new tools on the horizon. A low-tech first aid device, known as the non-pneumatic anti-shock garment, shunts blood out of the extremities and back to the vital organs in cases of hemorrhage. No magic bullet, but a potential game changer for women giving birth in the developing world and new hope for the health care providers.

After I showed this film recently, I was embraced by a woman in the audience who thanked me for saving the world. Locked in a bear hug with a complete stranger, I thought to myself: "Thank you, but no, I'm not saving the world, I just make films about people who are saving the world."

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Dawn Sinclair Shapiro's documentary film, The Edge of Joy, which was featured on PBS NewsHour in April 2011 as a selection of the PBS NewsHour partnership project with The Economist magazine -- the Economist Film Project -- will premiere on independent Link TV on Friday, October 28, at 5 pm ET and Tuesday, November 1, at 8 pm ET, and will stream on Link TV's ViewChange.org beginning on Tuesday, October 25. The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, an international journalism organization, has created an online curriculum that accompanies the film to be distributed to high school educators around the country; educators and others can download the film for free to accompany the curriculum at www.viewchange.org.

Each Mother's Day, I celebrate the two most miraculous, deliriously happy days of my life -- the days I gave birth to my two children. What I counted on during my birth experiences: health care, a safe and sanitary environment, and supportive and trained birth personnel. What would have never occurred to me, a resident of the United States having a baby in a very typical way in a wealthy nation: the day I become a mother is the most dangerous and deadly day I will face.

But in many parts of the developing world, the day a woman becomes a mother is a day too often obscured by terrible tragedy and danger. She will face losing her baby and losing her own life - on a day and occasion that we commemorate with cards and flowers here in the United States as Mother's Day.

According to international development organization, Save the Children, "around the world, more than 350,000 women die each year from complications of pregnancy and childbirth, and millions more develop some kind of disability. When a mother dies, her children are much more likely to be poor, to drop out of school, and to die before age five." The ripple effect is dramatic.

To take a deeper look into the lives of the world's mothers, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with independent non-profit broadcaster, Link TV, and Save the Children to co-produce a new half-hour documentary that takes viewers on a global tour of the best and worst places in the world to be a mother. (Conspicuous plug: You can view online at www.SavetheChildren.org/world-mothers or www.ViewChange.org beginning on May 3, or watch the broadcast on Link TV on Friday, May 6 and Tuesday, May 10. Check time and channel info.)

Based on Save the Children's just-released 2011 "State of the World’s Mothers" report, the special -- ViewChange: The Mothers Index -- takes viewers on an international journey to learn what it takes for global mothers and their children to thrive, introducing us to young moms and spotlighting programs that are changing the odds. In a unique collaboration in "global development storytelling," the show -- part of Link TV's ViewChange.org project that combines global development progress stories and direct action -- includes stories from the ONE campaign's Living Proof series.

WATCH "THE MOTHERS INDEX":

So, what's the data behind the stories? For its 2011 report, Save the Children conducted a comprehensive study of 164 countries, and compiled a "Mothers' Index." At the top of the index, women have access to excellent health services, skilled health workers, and opportunities for education and advancement. But the gap between the top and bottom-ranked countries is dramatic. At the bottom of the list, one in three children suffers from malnutrition, and one in 30 women will die from pregnancy-related causes. (See the full report at www.savethechildren.org)

When you watch, you’ll be struck -- as I was -- when you hear the story of one young mother who had buried eight babies and prayed that the ninth would live to see his first birthday. And you’ll hear from a 19-year-old mother in Nepal, nine months pregnant, as she matter-of-factly states, "My last baby was breech-born, and this time, I just might die."

But the terrible odds are not the whole story. The real story is the incredible strength and spirit of these mothers around the world -- and the importance of institutional solutions and government programs that are changing the statistics in preventable scenarios.

For example, we learn about the commitment from Sierra Leone’s government, which has just implemented a new program to provide free health care for pregnant women and children under five.

In Malawi, grandparents and village elders are now being trained as community health workers -- a tremendous program that's contributing to Malawi's breathtaking success in under-five child mortality over the past 20 years. Since 1990, Malawi has cut its under-five mortality rate in half thanks to its government’s commitment to programs like this -- a feat that seems even more remarkable considering that 40 percent of the Malawi population lives in poverty.

In rural Bangladesh, empowering girls through education will change the cycle of poverty, creating a ripple effect over the generations. And in India, one mother observes that "if you are uneducated, it is as if you have only one eye." The simple act of giving bicycles to girls -- to allow them to travel to school -- is changing the lives of young women in some of the poorest parts of the country.

What's the hope and mission of a project like this? To learn, of course, and to be inspired by the universal strength of mothers in all parts of the world -- and to take action and support programs that are working. For more info and actions you can take, visit www.ViewChange.org, click on the show, and consider the actions in the "take action" section of the player.

Happy Mother's Day.   

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Caty Borum Chattoo is Assistant Professor at American University’s School of Communication in Washington, D.C.  As a documentary producer and strategic communication consultant, she collaborates with Link TV and ViewChange.org.

This week several of Link's staff, including myself, attended SOCAP09 in San Francisco, a conference of social innovators and entrepreneurs investing in doing GOOD in the world. At the keynote address of the Embrace Disruption mini-conference on social media, Adam Werbach (former president of the Sierra Club) alerted us to the scourge of "yuppie mouth". This term is apparently used by dentists to describe tooth decay in young people who have avoided fluoridated public tap water in favor of an exclusive liquid diet of bottled waters, sodas and juices.

But cavities aren't the only reason you might think twice about drinking bottled H2O. There are sound ecological and economic reasons to eschew the bottle in favor of the tap -- including the plastic bottle refuse and the vast distances some bottled waters are transported. In the case of Fiji Water, as Werbach pointed out at SOCAP, your pristine thirst quencher is literally shipped from the other side of the world.

Wanting to dive in to the water wars, I found that Democracy Now! (airing on Link TV) was already there, interviewing author Anna Lenzer about her recent exposé in Mother Jones, "Fiji Water: Spin the Bottle." She points out the troubling environmental record of this brand that boasts the slogan "Every Drop is Green," as well as the U.S.-owned company's questionable relations with the island paradise's military junta. You can watch the complete interview at DemocracyNow.org.

Fiji Water has issued a response to the Mother Jones article, arguing that the company has and will continue to invest substantially into the people of Fiji. The company also strongly rejected the premise that their doing "business in Fiji somehow...legitimizes a military dictatorship."

Where do you stand on the water debate? Do you drink from the bottle or the tap -- and why? And do you buy Fiji Water's rebuttal of Lenzer's claims? Link wants to hear from you!

Fiji Water photo courtesy of Verne Equinox under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.