3 Days & Counting: Best/Worst Places to be a Mother
May 11, 2006 by kate baggott
Filed under Health
OK. It’s not about getting breakfast in bed anymore.
Save the Children has released its State of the World’s Mothers report in time for Mothers’ Day in North America.
The report ranks the top ten countries to be or to become a mother in. This, though, is not a time to celebrate being in the top ten. If you’re reading this on a computer, in fact if you’re literate, you’re one of the luckiest women in the world.
The report reminds us that motherhood, in much of the world, is often full of danger and heartbreak:
- Every year 60 million mothers in the developing world give birth without trained midwives or medical support.
- Every minute, another woman dies of pregnancy or childbirth-related causes.
- Annually, 4 million infants die in the first month of life, most of these deaths could be easily prevented and/or treated.
And yet, giving lay-midwives and other traditional birth attendants basic medical training is so cheap and easy. I was lucky enough to meet Dr. Nalini Singhal on an airplane once. In an interview with the neonatologist I later did for Today’s Parent magazine, she told me that even showing a birth attendant a simple new way of tying off the placenta can save a newborn’s life.
Now, I know, to a certain extent international pharmaceutical companies are holding international health care hostage in both the developed and developing world. But surely, we can all do better to improve the lives of pregnant women, new mothers and babies around the world? There’s a list of ways to help at the bottom of the report overview on the Save the Children site.
My own mother is not getting a gift for Mothers’ Day. She’s getting a donation made in her name. It will mean more to her.
Sweden is an amazing country to have little children in. So much is done to help parents to be good for the children - I love that about sweden.
I am also very aware on my luck…not just about being a mother here, but to live in a country where we see it as our right to have a safe place to live, and food many times per day if we want.
Still, why is it so hard to be happy?
I envy Swedish parents their daycare system.