Mother’s Day on Sunday marks the launch of an innovative program to improve maternal health by harnessing the power of soccer fandom.The World Health Organization says maternal mortality is unacceptably high. More than 700 women died every day in 2023 from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, according to a WHO fact sheet released last month.It’s a challenge that doctors, public health authorities and community workers have been trying to tackle.Former professional soccer player Morad Fareed thinks he can make progress improving maternal health through a love of sports.Fareed’s created FC Mother, a community platform pairing expectant and new mothers with a support network. The organization aims to turn global football clubs into platforms to improve public health, a broader concept he calls “H-sports,” or healing sports. “What we did was unify the world of maternal health and use football as a vehicle to distribute it, to celebrate it, and to gamify it,” said Fareed.The organization is kicking off what it’s calling the “World Cup of Healing” — a competition that measures health outcomes of the participating women, grouped by their reported soccer fandom. Mothers access services and connections via the FC Mother platform and then answer regular survey questions that assess their wellbeing. Improvements fuel team progress.FC Mother has some notable buy-in from researchers at Harvard Medical School and Harvard’s School of Public Health as well as team doctors from Real Madrid, Manchester United and Arsenal FC. FC Mother is tapping into football’s vast social infrastructure, community, and competitive spirit to transform maternal health.The initial competition launches on Sunday and runs for 60 days through the FIFA Club World Cup Final in July. This trial run pits three football clubs in Brazil and their associated fanbases of mothers against three in the United States: Mothers of San Diego FC, Mothers of Gotham FC, and Mothers of Omaha Union. FC Mother ranked the 48 World Cup countries by maternal health outcomes based on d …
