The Mothers Index: Quantifying Mothers round the world.

savethechildren.org

Mother’s Day is a holiday celebrated to honor motherhood throughout the world. Although it is observed in different forms and at different times worldwide, the basic thought  behind it remains the same. The American incarnation of Mother’s Day was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 and became an official U.S. holiday in 1914. It traditionally involved presenting the mothers with flowers, gifts and cards.

Beside celebrating love by giving gifts, we all have a moral obligation to protect the health of mothers round the world. It does not end with only making child birth safe for her but continue well beyond that into her geriatric years by building systems that are effective, inclusive and sustainable. Many diseases like breast and ovarian cancer, osteoporosis and other chronic diseases can be prevented or treated completely by early diagnosis.

Improving maternal health is among the most challenging of the Millennium Development Goals. In commemoration of Mother’s Day, Save the Children  published its 16th annual State of the World’s Mothers report; Norway rose to the top of the list while Somalia remained last for the second year in a row. 

The five indicators in the 2015 Mothers' Index of 179 countries are the lifetime risk of maternal death; children's well-being; educational status; economic status and political status, measured by women's participation in national government.

Every day, 17,000 children die before reaching their fifth birthday.

Best countries for mothers: (Top five in Mothers index)

Norway

Finland

Iceland

Denmark

Sweden

Worst countries for mothers: ( Last five in Mothers index)

Somalia

Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Central African Republic

Mali

Niger

The United States continues to be outpaced by smaller countries in its treatment of its mothers, dropping two spots to 33rd place.

There are nearly 2 billion mothers in the world (85.4 million in the U.S.) and 4.3 new mothers are added every second.

Quite a large number of children in developed countries live with one parent, most likely mother. Educated mothers are more likely to insist on their children being educated, specially girls. Their children are more likely to continue education and study for 2 hours more compared to illiterate mothers

Women all over the world are delaying childbirth, the average age of woman having the child for first time rose from 25 to 26 recently in US and it is 29 in other developed countries such as Japan and Switzerland according to data released by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Maternal Mortality Rate

According to WHO:

The current MMR is 216 deaths per 100,000 live births.

Every day, approximately 830 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth.

99% of all maternal deaths occur in developing countries where 1/3 of births are performed by unskilled professional.

Young adolescents face a higher risk of complications and death as a result of pregnancy than other women.

One in 4 women who die during childbirth is simply because of post-partum hemorrhage, which is preventable at meagre cost of 99 Cents.

Between 1990 and 2015, maternal mortality worldwide dropped by about 44%.

Between 2016 and 2030, as part of the Sustainable Development Goals, the target is to reduce the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100 000 live births.

MMR across the globe 

The top 5 countries in the world with lowest maternal mortality rates are Norway, Australia, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark.

The 5 countries with highest maternal mortality rates are South Sudan, Chad, Somalia, Sierra Leone and Burundi.

Fertility rates around the world.

The current fertility rate is 2.5 children per woman. Africa remain the region with highest fertility at 4.7 children per woman while Europe has the lowest fertility at 1.6 children per woman.

The world’s highest fertility rates exist in Niger, with an average of 7.75 children born per women. 

The world’s lowest fertility rates are found in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, where an average of 1.2 children are born per woman.

The net reproduction rate is the average number of daughters that would be born to a woman taking into account the prevailing levels of fertility, female mortality and the sex ratio at birth. The current reproduction rate globally is 1.1 surviving daughters per woman except for Africa, where the net reproduction rate is 1.9 This means that, on average, each African mother is replacing herself with nearly two daughters, which leads to fast population growth.

Net Reproduction Rate 

Statistics are far more than numbers. It is the human despair and lost opportunities behind these numbers that call for changes to ensure that mothers everywhere have the basic tools they need to break the cycle of poverty and improve the quality of life for themselves, their children, and for generations to come.