Maternal and Child Health
The numbers
The graphs form Unicef has shown that during years 1990-2008 there was a huge decrease between child mortality under five years. The worse situation was in Sub-Saharan Africa with the number of mortality rates on level 184 children per 1000 population in year 1990 and with a little bit lower number by the year 2008 – 144 cases per 1000. The best situation was is Central and Eastern Europe, Common wealth of Independent States with rates in 1990 on the level of 51 cases and 23 cases per 1000 in year 2008. We can easily see that according to date from year 2008 there was six times less case of child deaths in Europe than to Africa. The gap becomes even widen if we compare rates of deaths in Industrialized to Developing Countries. In 90’ the rates in first case were by 10/1000 but in developing countries it was 99/1000 – so ten times more. In year these rates decreased to 6/1000 in Industrialized Countries and to the level of 71/1000. When we analyze the total number of deaths under-5 years worldwide, we can observe also a big drop – from 12,5 millions in 90’ to 8.8 millions in 2008 – that is a clear sign that the problem of child mortality is being try to be solved. Unfortunately this numbers are still very high. We should ask what the causes for such high rates are worldwide, what the reason of such big gap between countries is and how we can prevent children and their mothers.
Causes
If there is lack of money and the children are also hungry and cannot give their organisms adequate amount of vitamins minerals and nutritional values, the health of these children is very poor and they can easily become ill.
We can see a few reasons of child and maternal mortality. The biggest single one is pneumonia. Every year there are more than 150 million cases worldwide but 100 of them are reported cases from only 15 countries. The causation of pneumonia are very often malnutrition and polluted air. Also the big problem are diarrhoeal diseases. Plenty of children daying from these reason in developing countries. Interesting is the fact what can prevent children from it – it is breastfeeding.
In African countries the big problem is malaria – almost 2900 childs die from these disease each day – it is like small city or village. Also main causes of child mortality are measles and HIV/AIDS. To avoid these problems, there should meet several conditions. First one is the quality of care while pregnancy period, second is safety delivery by birth attendant and as a third we can have good neonatal care. When we think about the Millennium Development Goal 4:” to reduce the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds by 2015” – it not seems to be easy challenge. It is also not cheap goal – experts are in opinion that it will cost nearly 50 billion $. It is a lot !
Readings
* Childinfo 2008. Monitoring the situation of children and women. UNICEF
o Statistics by area / Child Survival and Health
o Statistics by area / Maternal Health
* UNICEF 2008. Why are millions of children and women dying?
* WHO 2008. Fact sheets. Female Genital Mutilation.
* WHO 2008. 10 Facts on child health.
* WHO 2008. 10 Facts on maternal health.
* WHO 2008. 10 Facts about women's health.
* WHO 2008. What are the key health dangers for children?
Hello Mikolaj,
OdpowiedzUsuńI think there are a lot of influence factors for healthy life and there have to be basic requirements for a good, healthy life in every time of life. Especially for pregnant mothers, children, but also elderly. The factors, which are important to ensure health, are the same for every human, if mother or child. That there is a connection, of course. If the mother gets no care between pregnancy, the child will not have the condition for a high risk to survive. But also the mother’s life is in danger, because if they get no medical care, there can be a higher risk of complications during the birth.
We do not should separate mothers and child mortality. If the mother is healthy between the pregnancy, then the child will grow more healthy and have a better survival rate.
Kind regard,
brinii
Hello Mikolaj,
OdpowiedzUsuńI agree when you said that the basics f. ex. nutrition should be taken care of for proper health of children. This is a huge problem in developing country where there are lots of people but no money to feed them. But what could be done to the situation?
Breastfeeding can prevent certain deceases but if mothers are suffering for malnutrition too, they might not be able to provide milk for the children. So I also agree with Brinii commenting that mothers' and childs' health is connected to each other.
Virve R
Hey Mikolaj!
OdpowiedzUsuńYou mention varios reasons for the mortality rates, but concentrate more on the child mortality.
Some things that you highlight are HIV/AIDS and and breatfeeding which would ensure a healthier life for the child. Nevertheless, mother's with HIV should not breastfeed and sometimes they lack this information.
Other facts that you bring out are the quality care during pregnancy and qualified birth attendant - the access bouth of these would ensure that more mother's and children live longer and stay healthier.