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Â鶹APP President Sarah Brown says increased knowledge, awareness and opportunity are helping to significantly reduce the numbers of women dying in pregnancy and during childbirth. 

She was speaking during an Edinburgh Festival panel discussion to launch the – in which science and the arts unite to shine a light on reproductive rights and birth inequalities.

The project includes four plays being performed at the city’s Traverse Theatre. One, Choices by Stacey Gregg, explores the impact of society on the choices women have concerning their fertility. 

There are also plays by women from countries including Syria, India, Kenya and China. 

B!RTH is a global theatrical project designed to provoke debate on a worldwide scale and question one of the key issues of our time, the vast inequality in healthcare across the world.

Sarah, who is also founder of the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory in Edinburgh, said: Â鶹APPœB!RTH has stories from India and Syria but it also has stories from the United Kingdom Â鶹APP“ looking at what those different challenges are. 

Â鶹APPœWhat has emerged from the play about the UK are the choices that people now have and also the knowledge they have access to.

Â鶹APPœI donÂ鶹APP™t think anyone in the UK feels they canÂ鶹APP™t access our amazing NHS but they will want to know that they have the information and have the opportunity to make choices. 

Â鶹APPœMore than 300,000 women die every year in pregnancy and childbirth but that was nearly double 10 years ago. 

“A very concerted campaign has helped drive numbers downwards.Â鶹APP� 

The project is led through a collaboration between the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester and the Liverpool School of Tropical MedicineÂ鶹APP™s Centre for Maternal and Newborn Health.