Save the Children

Every year, our State of the World’s Mothers report reminds us of the inextricable link between the well-being of mothers and their children. As any mother – myself included – will tell you, our children’s health and safety is the most important thing in our lives. And we know that a strong and empowered mother is the best champion a child will ever have. More than 90 years of experience have shown us that when mothers have health care, education and economic opportunities, both they and their children have the best chance to survive and thrive.

But many are not so fortunate. Every year, 287,000 women die during pregnancy or childbirth, and 6.9 million children die before reaching their fifth birthday. Almost all these deaths occur in developing countries where mothers, children and newborns lack access to basic health care. While child mortality rates have declined in recent decades, 19,000 mothers still mourn the loss of a child each and every day – an unthinkable number of heartbreaks. This is especially tragic since most of these deaths could be prevented at a modest cost. 

This year’s report looks at the critical first day of life, when mothers and their newborns face the greatest threats to survival, and when there is tremendous opportunity to save lives. It highlights approaches that are working to bring essential health care to the hard-to-reach places where most deaths occur. And it shows how millions more lives each year can be saved if we invest in proven solutions and help mothers do what’s best for their children. If we don’t save lives on this critical first day, we will never truly end preventable child deaths.

Please read the Take Action section of this report and join me in doing what any mother would do: put the well-being of children first. 

Links:

• View the Interactive Report Online

• Download Report (PDF)

All women deserve the support they need to breastfeed, if they choose to. Breastfeeding has important benefits for moms and babies everywhere, and can literally save lives in the developing world. Save the Children’s new report, Superfood for Babies, estimates that 830,000 babies could be saved if all women breastfed in the first hour of life. Exclusive breastfeeding for six months could save even more lives.

Yet, the report explains, moms face four significant barriers to successful breastfeeding. They are cultural and community pressures, the health worker shortage, lack of maternity legislation, and inappropriate marketing of breast-milk substitutes.

In the last two decades there has been huge global progress in reducing child mortality. Five million fewer children died in 2011 than in 1990. The world is nearing a tipping point, the time at which the eradication of preventable child deaths becomes a real possibility. There is still a long way to go to achieve that goal. 

One-third of child deaths are still attributable to malnutrition; the reduction in malnutrition rates has been proceeding at a stubbornly slow pace. Unless malnutrition is tackled it threatens to become the ‘Achilles’ heel’ of development, holding back progress in other areas. We must also tackle the unacceptably high number of newborn deaths: while overall child mortality rates are falling, a larger proportion of deaths now occur within the first month of life. Breastfeeding saves lives. It’s the closest thing there is to a ‘silver bullet’ in the fight against malnutrition and newborn deaths.

Breast milk is a superfood. In the first hours and days of her baby’s life the mother produces milk called colostrum, the most potent natural immune system booster known to science. Research for this report estimates that 830,000 newborn deaths could be prevented every year if all infants were given breast milk in the first hour of life. It is not only through the ‘power of the first hour’ that breastfeeding is beneficial. If an infant is fed only breast milk for the first six months they are protected against major childhood diseases.

• Superfood for Babies (PDF)