Claudia Winkleman: Take It From Me

'My life had just been made suddenly more worthwhile: for some reason, I'd been invited to lunch with Carla'

Let's be honest, someone must have dropped out and I got the spare invite. The special, embossed, glinty super-chic invite. This one was better than the "David and Elton are planning a karaoke night and they want to know if you'd tackle 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'"; and better than "uh, Donatella would like you to come into the store and pick a dress"; and even better than "Madonna is having a seance, she wants to talk to Marilyn, and she'd love you to come – can you put the 15th in your diary?". (These are obviously made up, and I would never be invited to any of them, but work with me here...)

The truth is I get invited to nothing. Well, unless you consider a relaunch of Ed's Diner in Brent Cross hosted by Someone Who Almost Slept With Mick Hucknall as something, and I'm not sure that it is.

Anyway, this was the big one. Would I like to attend a women's lunch hosted by Sarah Brown for Carla Sarkozy to talk about a charity called White Ribbon. Oh yes. I punched the air. My seemingly ridiculous working life (more fake tan, more autocue, more mascara, even more fake tan) had just been made suddenly more worthwhile as, for some reason, I was invited to lunch with Carla. Hello Santa, hello Selfridges, hello Mme S.

Now, what I was going to worry about was whether to put my hair up or not, but I certainly wasn't going to stress about the Ribbon thing. If they needed me to wear red ones or green ones, or talk about ribbons or ribbon eels or whatever it is they were championing, for 30 minutes over a steak Béarnaise, then that was totally fine with me. I was having lunch with Carla, and the ribbon stuff was of little interest.

I tried to look as glamorous as possible without actually wearing full black tie, and I was tempted to throw on a T-shirt with the slogan, "Hooray! But what am I doing here?". I went with a girlfriend and we were so early we practically spent the night outside the location. Think Henman Hill, people with flasks and sleeping bags waving small flags – that was us.

I've never been ready for lunch at 10am in my life – but being late for Carla? Come on. That's just bad form. So, in we go, and it's really quite gorgeous and there are a few people I know. I nod and try to occasionally say something clever like "if you mix blue and yellow you get green", and it all goes swimmingly.

And then the White Ribbon thing comes up. Now, assuming this is a "fashion should bring back more monochrome trim" thing, I still didn't really engage. More olives and another glass of apple juice, and yip-e-yay, life is good! There's someone off the telly, there's a Cabinet minister, there's a newspaper editor. Tick. Tick. Tick. I only went to the loo to phone my husband once to give him the lowdown, and all he asked was, "Is she wearing a Rolling Stones T-shirt?", and, "I've got Alvin and the Chipmunks on DVD – how cool am I?".

First course over and the White Ribbon lady (uh, that will be Sarah Brown) decides to share some facts about the charity.

Ah. I see.

Well, I can tell you it's not a "come on women, why aren't we all wearing more jackets with a white weave running through them" cause. We listened to some truly horrifying statistics and we all got goose bumps that didn't go away. Now, unlike "Carla really does suit heather- grey", these facts I really think I should share.

In 2000, the UN designated some Millennium Development goals – problems it wanted to tackle by 2015. There are eight of them and they cover the really important stuff, like let's try to beat Aids and malaria, and let's do everything we can to help all children get a primary education. Well, number five on the list is about improving maternal care.

Half a million women die every year during child birth. That's not a typo – that's 500,000 deaths. And 80 per cent of them can be easily stopped. Women in developing countries just aren't getting the basic care they need during labour. I learnt that it's very common for a woman to say goodbye to her husband and children just as she's about to give birth because she assumes she won't make it.

Interestingly, all of the UN's 2015 goals are being dealt with in some way, and it feels as if, through awareness, some of the problems of the world are being tackled, albeit slowly. But this problem hasn't seen any change – nothing. Still today, every single minute a woman dies totally needlessly from giving birth. The best moment of her life ends her life.

This not only affects the children, who have to grow up without mothers, but also the families and communities involved. The children may have to be looked after by their father, who will have to give up work and so won't be able to afford to feed his family. Or an older sister might have to leave school to care for the family.

The White Ribbon Alliance is trying to change this. As we were all about to leave, we were told to do one thing. Just one thing to ensure that people know about the terrible situation these women are in. "Tell someone you know, let people realise that we're trying to make a difference" they said. Our job was to try to share the facts and tell people what's happening. These women are powerless and they're dying – one in eight women will die having their baby and they have no voice.

"Please just do one thing."

Well, this is mine.