Redefining wellness: Johanna Konta shares her journey to better health

Editor's note: This first-person account from Johanna Konta, former World No. 4 on the Hologic WTA Tour, shares her journey into motherhood while highlighting the urgent challenges faced by mothers in the world's poorest countries. Konta's appearance supported the ongoing efforts of the WTA Foundation's Women Change The Game initiative.

Stepping from center court into motherhood was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made -- and one of the hardest. One of the things I’ve learned in my work over the past couple years is that for mothers living in the world’s poorest countries, it’s a million times harder.

Women are change makers in their families, communities, and countries. The hard truth is that we’re not doing nearly enough to support them -- especially when it comes to the basics, like healthcare and nutrition. 

Take something as simple as prenatal vitamins. Adding a prenatal vitamin to my daily routine was one the first things I did when I learned I was pregnant, because I wanted to set my child up for the best start at life. Living in the UK, it was as easy as stopping by my neighbourhood shop or adding it to our grocery list.

I was shocked to learn that fewer than one in 10 women around the world have access to a complete prenatal vitamin. These same women are the least likely to have access to a healthy, nutritious diet. Taken together, the numbers are staggering: 1 billion women lack access to the adequate nutrition and healthy diets they need to survive and thrive.

The consequences can be devastating for women and their babies. Women who are malnourished are more likely to have serious pregnancy complications like anemia, which increases the risk of preterm birth and postpartum haemorrhage, the leading cause of maternal death. And their babies are more likely to be born too soon and too small. For children that do survive, malnutrition can cause irreversible damage to their health and development. In countries across the world, malnutrition makes common childhood illnesses like pneumonia and diarrhea much more deadly. Malnutrition is an underlying cause of nearly half of all child deaths each year.

The good news is that many of the solutions are straightforward. A high-quality prenatal vitamin is now available for women in low-middle income countries with 15 essential vitamins and minerals to support a healthy pregnancy for women and put babies on the right track for health and development. When taken daily during pregnancy, these vitamins -- called multiple micronutrient supplements, or MMS -- can help prevent anaemia, support healthy pregnancies and reduce the risk of newborns being born prematurely or too small.

Global plans call for the rapid scale up of MMS to reach 260 million women by the end of 2030. Doing this would save more than half a million lives, improving birth outcomes for more than five million babies and preventing anemia in over 15 million pregnant women. And at $2.60 per pregnancy, it’s considered one of the best buys in global health. Experts estimate that every dollar invested in providing women with prenatal vitamins yields a $37 return in economic benefits.

The challenge now is ensuring every mother who needs it can access it as easily as I picked up a bottle from the supermarket. Countries like Indonesia, Rwanda, Pakistan and Nigeria are already leading the way in ensuring women have access to MMS. In these countries, scale-up has been successful due to the effective collaboration between government leaders, donors and supporting partners like UNICEF, showing that change is possible.  

But to achieve this, we must increase funding into vital platforms like UNICEF’s Child Nutrition Fund. The fund supports in-country, on-the-ground programmes needed to deliver essential nutrition services, commodities and treatments to pregnant women and young children. It aims to raise $2 billion by 2030 to reach children and women in 23 countries with MMS and other essential support.

And we can’t stop there. Anyone that’s gone through pregnancy, childbirth and those first few weeks at home with a newborn knows the wide-ranging support that families need through this vital period. In countries around the world, stubbornly high maternal and newborn death rates are a glaring sign that we need to invest more in antenatal care platforms.

Prenatal vitamins are the critical first step. Introducing and scaling MMS will require strengthening health systems and improving the quality of care for women and children -- for example, by strengthening supply chains and train and equipping health workers to address broader health concerns.

Reaching 1 billion women with better nutrition -- and eventually, better healthcare -- may feel daunting. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my days and an athlete and as a mother, it’s that when we invest in women, they change the game.

To learn more, visit womenchangethegame.com and wta.foundation.