TUESDAY, May 6, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- The United States has again failed to reach the top tier of countries considered the best for mothers and their children.
For the fourth year running, the international relief organization Save the Children ranked the United States 11th in its annual Mothers' Index, released Tuesday. The index compares women's and children's health, education and political status in 19 industrialized nations and 98 developing-world countries.
Mary Beth Powers, a senior reproductive health advisor at Save the Children and one of the authors of the report, explains that the biggest reason the United States hasn't been able to move into the top 10 is because every woman doesn't have equal access to quality health care.
Other reasons the United States lags behind other developed countries, she adds, are a higher maternal and infant death rate and fewer women in government.
Leading the list is Sweden and last on the list is Niger. The index rated countries based on six factors of women's well-being and four factors of children's well-being. For mothers, the organization looked at maternal mortality, the use of modern contraception, the percentage of births attended by trained health-care providers, the number of pregnant women with anemia, the adult female literacy rate, and the number of women involved in the national government. Children's well-being ratings were based on the infant mortality rate, access to primary education, access to safe water, and the number of children under 5 suffering from serious malnutrition.
The top 10 countries on the index are:
- Sweden
- Denmark
- Norway
- Switzerland
- Finland
- Canada
- Netherlands
- Australia
- Austria
- United Kingdom
The 10 countries that scored worst are:
- Niger
- Burkina Faso
- Ethiopia
- Guinea-Bissau
- Yemen
- Sierra Leone
- Guinea
- Mali
- Chad
- Angola
Not surprisingly, many of the countries in the bottom 10 have recently been involved in military conflicts.
"Being in a recent conflict harms chances of survival and the chances that children are in school," says Powers. "In Afghanistan, only 29 percent of primary age children were in school."
In Iraq, a mother is 35 times more likely to see her child die in the first year of life than is a mother in Sweden, says the report, which was compiled before the recent war.
Powers says that military conflicts also increase the chances of limited access to safe water. In Afghanistan, 87 percent of the people don't have access to safe drinking water, according to the report. (Afghanistan isn't on the list, however, because not enough all-around data was available.)
Another big reason for a low score was a high maternal death rate. In Afghanistan, Guinea and Sierra Leone, one in seven women dies during pregnancy or childbirth.
Powers says countries can improve their mothers' well-being by improving education and access to preventive health care for both women and children. Access to voluntary contraception is also important, she adds.
Faye Wattleton, president of the Center for the Advancement of Women, says of the report, "One of the key points here that often gets lost, is that without healthy mothers, it's virtually impossible to achieve health in children."
"I was shocked and saddened that the U.S. didn't rank in the Top 10," Wattleton adds. "My hunch is that it has a lot to do with the state of the health-care system. So many women don't have adequate health-care coverage."
Wattleton says the most important thing any country can do to help its mothers and children is to educate them.
"Uneducated women do not have the equipment to raise healthy children," she adds.
More information
For a copy of the 2003 Mother's Index, visit Save the Children. Beginning Mother's Day, the National Women's Health Information Center is sponsoring National Women's Health Week, and as part of that program, it has put together the Women's Health Packet.
