Best Place for Mother’s in the World

A report published in May of 2008 called “State of the World’s Mothers”, by the international aid agency Save The Children, documented the overall health of mothers and children in countries around the world. The document which illustrates where mothers and children fare best and where they face the greatest hardship, received a lot of press for the portions that showed how many children die each year due to a total lack of any healthcare. But the report also covered the issues of healthcare related to mothers.
In this report, Save The Children, ranked the nations of the world according to three indexes they list as “Mothers’, Women’s and Children’s indexes. In this report Save the Children did assessments on such aspects of health including longevity, drinking water quality, maternity leave allowances, women’s political participation and the mortality rate of children under five. They separated the countries of the world into three tiers. One group or “Tier 1″ represented the more developed countries, and “Tier 2″ group represented the less developed countries, with Tier 3 being the least developed countries.
In Tier 1, Sweden got the highest ranking for both mothers and women and came in fourth for children. This ranking was out of a total of 43 nations that were included in Tier 1, because they were more developed. The United States actually dropped one position in the ranking this year falling to 27th on the list for mothers. The US did slightly better in the women’s index being ranked 22nd out of 43. However, when it came to children, the US was ranked in the bottom third of Tier 1 developed nations getting a ranking of 33 out of 43.
These low US numbers are in spite of the fact that the US health care system is the most expensive in the world costing over 2 trillion dollars per year. The Czech Republic ranked just ahead of the US who was followed by Slovakia. The type of criteria analyzed in this report include:
· Lifetime risk of maternal mortality
· Female life expectancy
· Expected number of years of formal schooling for females
· Ratio of estimated female-to-male earned income
· Mortality rate for children under 5
· Percentage of children under age 5 moderately or severely underweight
· School enrolment ratios
· Percentage of population with access to safe water
As disappointing as the ranking is for the US, the Tier 1 ranking is far above those countries on the tier 2 and 3 lists. The report noted that more than 500,000 women die during pregnancy or childbirth, and nearly 10 million children die before reaching their fifth birthday. In an impassioned plea, Charles F. MacCormack, President and CEO of Save the Children commented, “We count on the world’s leaders to take stock of how mothers and children are faring in every country. Investing in this most basic partnership of all – between a mother and her child – is the first and best step in ensuring healthy children, prosperous families and strong communities.”