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Lata Netam, a health worker, unsuccessfully tries to push a motorbike ambulance, up a steep riverbank through Abhujmarh, or “the unknown hills”, to reach a pregnant woman in Kodoli, a remote village near Orchha in central India's Chhattisgarh state, November 15, 2022. These ambulances, first deployed in 2014, reach inaccessible villages to bring pregnant women to an early referral center, a building close to the hospital where expectant mothers can stay under observation, routinely visit doctors if needed until they give birth. Since then the number of babies born in hospitals has doubled to a yearly average of about 162 births each year, from just 76 in 2014. The state has one of the highest rates of pregnancy-related deaths for mothers in India, about 1.5 times the national average, with 137 pregnancy related deaths for mothers per 100,000 births. (Photo by Altaf Qadri/AP Photo)
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