This is a selection of photos especially gathered for International Women’s Day. Celebrating on International Women’s Day the work of Unicef in supporting midwives and healthcare workers in some of the world’s most challenging countries to give birth.

From midwife Helen Danies who speaks to a new mother at the maternity ward at the Juba teaching hospital to Fatna Abdurhaman who discusses newborn care with Nura Mustafa during a mother-to-mother support group held at a Unicef-supported health post in Ashura, in the remote Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia, all these photos will give you thrills.

Check them out for more information and start to see our world through photos!

Midwife Helen Danies speaks to a new mother at the maternity ward at the Juba teaching hospital. More than 10% of infants born in the hospital’s neonatal clinic die. South Sudan has some of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world, with one in 26 infants dying within 28 days of birth
Photograph: Mark Naftalin/Unicef

Await Said looks at her newborn grandson, Ayah, whose mother died after his delivery. He has jaundice and sepsis and weighs only 1.3kg. The hospital does not have the equipment to properly test and treat Ayah
Photograph: Mark Naftalin/Unicef

A midwife checks on exhausted new mother Hazera Begum, 18, who is recuperating next to her daughter, three-day-old Kismat Ara, at the Unicef-supported birthing centre in the Kutupalong camp for Rohingya refugees, in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh
Photograph: Roger LeMoyne/Unicef

Sara with her newborn son at Bwaila hospital in Lilongwe. Every year in Malawi 120,000 babies are born premature and 28,300 newborns die or are stillborn
Photograph: Thoko Chikondi/Unicef

Midwife Dorothy Lenabane helps to deliver a baby in the labour ward of Zomba Central hospital. Unicef is supporting the government of Malawi to improve the survival rates of babies
Photograph: Roger Bosch/Unicef

Amina Shallangwa, a Unicef-supported midwife, talks to a pregnant woman about good hygiene practices at Muna Garage camp for internally displaced people in Nigeria. Amina, who has been a midwife for more than 20 years, says: ‘I became a midwife because the last baby of my mother was stillborn … I said if I grow up, I will have to be a midwife so I can help my people’
Photograph: Mark Naftalin/Unicef

Amina Shallangwa, a Unicef-supported midwife, talks to a group of pregnant women at the Auno health clinic. Unicef and partners have reached 24,610 pregnant women with antenatal care in Nigeria
Photograph: Mark Naftalin/Unicef

Women wait with their children as they attend a vaccination session at the Baraouéli health centre in Baraouéli, in the Ségou region of Mali
Photograph: Seyba Keïta/Unicef

Amina Shallangwa with new mothers at a camp in Muna Garage. In December 2017, 406,638 consultations were made in Unicef-supported health facilities in north-east Nigeria
Photograph: Mark Naftalin/Unicef

Fatoumata Ouattara leads a group session on the importance of prenatal health. She says: ‘Mothers have to register their children at birth, respect the vaccination calendar to immunise them, exclusively breastfeed them for the first six months, play with them at home and enrol them in preschool’
Photograph: Seyba Keïta/Unicef

Fatoumata Ouattara (right) and other women who participate in the Mama Yeleen initiative in Baraouéli village, Ségou region, Mali. The initiative, promoted and supported by Unicef, trains women to act as model mothers in early childhood development, educating parents about good nutrition and the welfare of mothers and children
Photograph: Seyba Keïta/Unicef

Tata Oulalé, a Mama Yeleen, holds her six-month-old son Mohamed as she waits for him to receive vaccinations at the Baraouéli health centre
Photograph: Seyba Keïta/Unicef

Sophie Tayeye, a community liaison health worker, explains to new mothers the importance of registering their child’s birth at the Lwani health centre in Bandundu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Photograph: Gwenn Dubourthoumieu/Unicef

Dr Baktygul Pakirova watches Jiydegul hold her newborn son, Nurdan. After two days in hospital, mother and son will be ready to go home. Unicef estimates approximately 1 million newborns around the world died on their first day of life last year. Kyrgyzstan remains an example of how small solutions save newborn lives
Photograph: Vladimir Voronin/Unicef

A baby born prematurely in the Bishkek maternity hospital in Kyrgyzstan. The country has achieved impressive results in eradicating newborn mortality. From 1990-2016, the neonatal mortality rate was cut in half – from 24 to 12 deaths per 1,000 live births
Photograph: Vladimir Voronin/Unicef

Fatna Abdurhaman (left) discusses newborn care with Nura Mustafa during a mother-to-mother support group held at a Unicef-supported health post in Ashura, in the remote Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia. The region’s newborn mortality rate fell by nearly 50% between 2000 and 2016, from 65 deaths for every 1,000 live births to 35 deaths for every 1,000 live births. The improvement is due in part to the reach and skill of Ethiopia’s health extension workers, who provide free pre- and postnatal care at community sites such as this one
Photograph: Mulugeta Ayene/Unicef