Following a conference on the 14th April, Save the Children is launching an online campaign, ‘Build it for Babies‘ today to help save children’s lives in Bangladesh by raising funds to build seven new clinics.

In Bangladesh a shocking number of children don’t live past their first month and every hour of every day, 11 newborn babies die: that’s about one every six minutes. Most of these children die because they don’t have access to even the most basic healthcare.

Save the Children are determined to do something about this. That’s why they are hoping to build seven fully equipped clinics staffed by professional health workers in two of Bangladesh’s poorest districts: Baniachong and Ajmiriganj.

The clinics will provide vital, life-saving medical services to more than 150,000 people every year, and will mean over 3,500 more newborn babies each year will receive the care they need to survive those perilous first 28 days of their lives.

Find out more about how to Blog it for Babies and follow them on Twitter at @savechildrenuk.

Britain is in the spotlight this week, the Queen is celebrating her birthday and London will be playing host to thousands of marathon runners. With all this attention, what better time to consider what it means to be a British mum. For Jax, being a British mum made her think about what other mums and children around the world don’t have.

I’ve given birth four times now in Britain, three times at home. Each of those was a chosen and supported homebirth, with a midwife there throughout labour and a second for the arrival of baby. The midwives are equipped with all sorts of kit and kaboodle – oxygen to resuscitate a baby, gas and air to make me comfortable. If anything goes wrong, a hospital is a short ambulance ride away, with all the expertise and equipment we take for granted.

Recently I’ve had a scare with baby no four – he was still jaundiced at four weeks old, and then slowed his weight gain, so we were referred to hospital for investigation. I endured an agonising wait of over four hours, desperate to find out if there was anything wrong with my child. The treatment we received, while more than adequate medically (a range of blood, urine and stool sample tests done, all within 48 hours), fell below the standards we expect and should receive, to the extent that even my health visitor has recommended I complain.

And again, we take it all for granted; the expertise which is there, round the clock, free at the point of delivery, and that I can complain when the experience isn’t quite what we feel we should have.

We are so lucky to have all of this, no matter how much we complain about it. At the moment there’s a campaign starting across blogs and twitter, beginning with the mummy bloggers, to support the Save the Children Build it for Babies campaign. It’s raising money for women and babies in Bangladesh so that they can have a fraction of what we take for granted.

What do you take for granted about life as a mum in Britain? What will you do for mums around the world that don’t have what we have?