\Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellmann is CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. On January 26th, she spoke with Scientific Americanabout the goals the (international) philanthropic foundation put forth in its just-released annual letter.

“This has been an area that’s so important and so challenging. It is essential to think about all (aspects) of that. For example, one of the areas that the Foundation is now funding is family planning, so that a woman, or a young woman in particular, can decide when she wants to become pregnant, that that’s a (decision) she can make and she can space her children. And so I think it starts with that. We also have a big focus on nutrition, so a mom having a good nutritional status when she’s pregnant, again, very helpful. And then, again, working with (local) groups, with ministries of health, to make sure that a woman can deliver at a facility, where things are there available should she need the kind of care that having the baby at home wouldn’t enable her to have.”