Posted on 05/05/2015 8:35:44 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
Somalia is the worst place, just below the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
Save the Children released its 16th annual Mothers' Index, which rates 179 countries based on five indicators related to maternal health, education, income levels and the status of women.
This year, the United States dropped from number 31 on the list to 33, behind Japan, Poland and Croatia.
American women have a one in 1,800 risk of maternal death, the worst level of risk of any developed country in the world, according to the report.
An American woman is more than 10 times as likely to die in childbirth than a Polish woman.
Save the Children also reported that mothers are having a tougher time in the world's expanding …
Scandinavian countries have consistently taken the first spots in the Mothers' Index, with Norway this year beating out Finland which held the top spot last year.
Among the top ten, Australia is the only non-European country, at number nine.
France and Britain take the 23rd and 24th spot, below Canada at number 20.
The ten worst places are all sub-Saharan African countries, with Haiti tied with Sierra Leone for the 169th spot.
Nine of the bottom ten countries are wracked by conflict. Somalia is the worst place to be a mother, just below the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The disparity in terms of infant mortality is striking.
In the top 10 countries, one mother out of 290 will lose a child before the age of five. In the bottom 10, that rate stands at one in eight.
Save the Children also looked at infant mortality rates in the world's 24 wealthiest capital cities and found Washington had the highest rate at 7.9 deaths per 1,000.
By comparison, Stockholm and Oslo had infant mortality rates at or below 2 deaths per 1,000.
Save the Children CEO Carolyn Miles said the data confirmed that a country's economic wealth is not the sole factor leading to happy mothers, but that policies need to be put in place.
In the case of Norway, "they do have wealth, but they also invest that wealth in things like mothers and children, as a very high priority," Miles said.
Save the Children also reported that mothers are having a tougher time in the world's expanding cities, with survival gaps between rich and poor widening.
Cities in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Peru, Rwanda, Vietnam and Zimbabwe have the highest gap for child survival, with poor children three to five times more likely to die than their affluent peers.
One factor --- among many --- may be the steadily advancing age at which American women are giving birth. Fewer and fewer are late teens or early 20's --- the safest ages --- at the time of first childbirth and more and more are mid-to-late 30's early 40's, when there's far higher risk of complications from underlying chronic diseases like high blood pressure, obesity, type-2 diabetes, pulmonary disease and renal insufficiency.
What’s interesting is how countries count infant deaths. For example, many countries do not count a death of a baby if it was born with deformities because they say it never had a chance. Other countries say a birth only counts if baby lives for at least 24 hours. The US is the only country that reports all births regardless.
I find that incongruous to what I see, 15-18 year old girls every where with kids in tow.
Also, as far as rank in the world, socialist governmenst love to pad their stats to make them look like a panacea.
One way to look at this is that the US has vastly improved the way they detect pregnancy related deaths.
These typically include things like 1 year of maternal leave, free daycare, and crap like that.
Waiting for this news to radically change and reduce the numbers of women coming here illegally to give birth. . .and still waiting. . .
But the average age for first childbirth is also going up-up-up in all the developed countries, so I really don't know how relevant this is for comparison's sake.
The question of reporting is also hard to figure. Computerized statistic-gathering has definitely made the reporting of maternal morbidity and mortality to rise, but that also would be true of other developed countries, not just the USA.
I wonder if removing urban centers would alter our standing in the world on this.
In the USA, NICU's try to save even very premature babies. Their births and their deaths are recorded. That would boost the statistics on infant mortality.
I can see how this would be attractive to many.
I am sure that our urban underclass of moms strung out on heroin, subsisting on a diet of thunderbird and twinkies, greatly inflates our stats.
C-sections, obesity, more accurate reporting and counter intuitively excellent health care in childhood that allows children to grow up and become pregnant are some of the confounding factors.
Something is screwy here. I remember seeing a similar report a few years ago. The people who constructed that report left a number of things out chiefly to do with how infant deaths are reported.
At least we’re number one at Worst Place to Be An Unborn Child thanks to President Jug Ears and his ilk.
Oh, and taxes will need to be raised because of this. For childrens.
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