Mother & Infant Mortality

[waltky]

Mother-infant mortality a problem in developing countries...
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Developing Countries Tackle Mother, Infant Mortality
February 16, 2017 | WASHINGTON — Too many women die in childbirth, and too many babies die during delivery. Dr. Flavia Bustreo at the World Health Organization (WHO) says it's hard to believe that in 2015, almost 6 million children under age 5 and more than 300,000 mothers died from complications of childbirth.


Bustreo heads a new program to reduce these deaths by half within the next five years, and to end preventable infant and maternal deaths by 2030 in nine high-risk countries — Bangladesh, India, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda. This will be done through a new “Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health.” It will have support from UNICEF and WHO, where Bustreo is the assistant director-general for family, women's and children's health. “The dynamics we are trying to create is to have the partners and players within each country to create their targets, so that they own those targets, and they are also responsible and accountable to their own population for delivery,” Bustreo told VOA in a Skype interview from Geneva.

Countries are committed

The countries will provide training to health professionals so they can intervene in an emergency, whether it's suctioning out amniotic fluid from a newborn's airway so the baby can breathe, or stopping a women who has just given birth from hemorrhaging. Bustreo said a third of maternal deaths are linked to post-partum hemorrhaging, and most of the babies die on the day of their birth.


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Monowara holds her 22-day-old grandson Arafat, as she walks through a mustard field on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh

The countries in the network have high maternal and infant mortality rates, but Bustreo said they are fully committed to achieving these goals. They need to build or modernize health care facilities so there's a consistent supply of running water and electricity. A number of facilities lack these necessities. These vital resources mean babies can be incubated and kept warm and mothers who need cesarean sections can have this surgery.

Well-trained staff a priority

Health care facilities have to be upgraded or built with their own sources of electricity, and the people who staff these facilities need training so they can perform lifesaving procedures expertly. “If you have a woman who delivers in a health care facility, but that facility does not provide well-trained health care workers or does not provide good quality care, you don't see mortality reduction,” Bustreo explained.


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A woman sleeps next to her newborn baby in a nursery in the Juba Teaching Hospital, April 3, 2013. Very few births in South Sudan are assisted by trained midwives

In some regions, women traditionally give birth at home. The challenge is to get these women to give birth in clean, well-equipped health facilities. Bustreo said some of these women are afraid they will get infections or contract diseases. The goal is ultimately to end preventable deaths of mothers and babies. But first, these countries are focusing on reducing maternal and infant death by half within the next five years.

http://www.voanews.com/a/developing-countries-tackle-mother-and-infant-mortality/3728515.html

[rcfieldz]

This can be a problem too...

http://www.inquisitr.com/30950/horrific-mother-kills-eats-baby-in-texas/

It happened again...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3140745/Alcoholic-mother-eating-two-year-old-daughter-alive-slicing-child-s-head-tied-beaten-furious-mob-India.html

And yet again!

http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/missouri-babysitter-on-crystal-meth-eats-3-month-old-toddler/

[FindersKeepers]

Mother-infant mortality a problem in developing countries...
http://www.politicalforum.com/images/smilies/fingerscrossed.gif
Developing Countries Tackle Mother, Infant Mortality
February 16, 2017 | WASHINGTON — Too many women die in childbirth, and too many babies die during delivery. Dr. Flavia Bustreo at the World Health Organization (WHO) says it's hard to believe that in 2015, almost 6 million children under age 5 and more than 300,000 mothers died from complications of childbirth.

Anytime women deliver by themselves, the risk of infant/maternal death increases. That's incredibly sad, but so is the life many of those children find themselves living, if they survive.

I understand the desire to help implement medical care in those developing nations, but I think, along with that, we need to spread information about birth control.

[donttread]

Mother-infant mortality a problem in developing countries...
http://www.politicalforum.com/images/smilies/fingerscrossed.gif
Developing Countries Tackle Mother, Infant Mortality
February 16, 2017 | WASHINGTON — Too many women die in childbirth, and too many babies die during delivery. Dr. Flavia Bustreo at the World Health Organization (WHO) says it's hard to believe that in 2015, almost 6 million children under age 5 and more than 300,000 mothers died from complications of childbirth.


Infant mortality rates are a decent measure of a society in many ways. Many nations have lower rates of infant mortality than we do but few if any have a higher rate than Afghanistan. Lets stay longer and continue to help this county as we obviously have been! LOL

[waltky]

Maternal mortality rate seen as a key way to measure improvement in a nation’s health...

Asia struggles to reduce childbirth deaths
Wed, Oct 18, 2017 - It seemed a simple statement: Women should not die from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth.


Yet two years after world leaders agreed to 17 global goals at the UN, including the childbirth target, countries in the Asia-Pacific region are grappling to twin the rhetoric with social, cultural and political realities. An estimated 85,000 mothers died in 2015 from childbirth in the region, home to more than half of the world’s population and some of its fastest growing economies, UN figures show, with the maternal mortality rate seen as a key way to measure improvement in a nation’s health. These deaths accounted for 28 percent of the global total, translating into a maternal mortality ratio (MMR) of 127 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), which released its latest State of the World Population Report yesterday. Up to 90 percent of these deaths occur in 12 countries, according to UNFPA, whose officials have calculated which are likely to meet the global target of reducing its MMR to below 70 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030.

Bangladesh, Laos, East Timor and Indonesia are seen as likely to meet the deadline. Afghanistan, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Myanmar, Pakistan, India, Cambodia and the Philippines are seen as failing to reach the target by varying degrees. Reducing maternal deaths requires political will, government foresight and access to family planning, campaigners said. “[This is) an issue that’s still too often seen as medical, and strictly related to women’s life. It’s not,” said Federica Maurizio, a sexual health and reproductive rights expert at UNFPA in Bangkok. “Maternal health ... is one of the key indicators that really tells you how much the health system in a country is able to provide for the people,” she said. Oona Campbell, professor of epidemiology and reproductive health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said it raises wider issues of women’s place in society. “Do we care about women? Do we think it’s not a problem if the wife dies? Is this something we care about enough to deliver services that are good quality?” she said.

Campbell said it was not entirely accurate to chart a nation’s progress using a global goal. Another way to measure progress, she said, was to use country level targets, such as aiming to reduce maternal deaths by at least two-thirds from 2010, and for no country to have an MMR greater than 140 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030. Campbell also said that data is weak in many countries due to a lack of civil registration and poor cause-of-death records. This could mean calculations of Afghanistan’s dramatic improvement, hailed as one of the gains of foreign aid there, may be an overestimate, she said. UN figures showed the maternal mortality rate had dropped to 396 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2015 from 1,600 deaths in 2002 after the US-led invasion that ousted the Taliban after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the US.

Afghanistan’s own data put its MMR three times higher. UNFPA deputy representative to Afghanistan Mateen Shaheen said women’s access to healthcare in Afghanistan remained tricky as culture dictates that women are only seen by female healthcare workers. UNFPA operates 124 clinics staffed by women and aims to nearly double that by the late next year.

MORE (http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2017/10/18/2003680585)

[waltky]

Infant mortality improving...
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More Children Surviving to Age 5
3 Nov.`17 | WASHINGTON - In the past 25 years, the world has made remarkable progress in saving the lives of young children, according to the latest report from the United Nations.


In 1990, 35,000 children died every day; last year, 15,000 children and babies died daily, the first time that annual child deaths have fallen below the 6 million mark. But most of these deaths could have been prevented, according to a U.N. interagency group that put together this year's report on child mortality. Dr. Flavia Bustreo of the World Health Organization acknowledged the effort it has taken to get to this point. But while the progress is good, it is not enough, she said. "I need to stress these deaths can be prevented. With the scientific knowledge we have, with the interventions we have, with the resources that we have available, these deaths can be prevented," said Bustreo, WHO assistant director-general for family, women's and children's health. And that is the tragedy that coincides with this achievement. The report on child and infant mortality states that every year, millions of children younger than 5 die, mostly from malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea. The last two are related to unsanitary conditions.

Malnutrition plays a part

In almost half of these cases, malnutrition weakens the immune system, leaving the child unable to fight off the disease. Bustreo said access to clean water and exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months of life can reduce an infant's risk of infection. Although more children are living to their fifth birthday, Bustreo says the U.N. report shows that 46 percent of child deaths occur shortly after birth. She said the babies who die in the first months of life are born prematurely. "They (the deaths) are caused by low birth weight. They are caused significantly by sepsis, severe infection that is acquired during the delivery, and they are also caused by asphyxia," Bustreo said.


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While in the womb, the fetus floats in amniotic fluid. This fluid is in the fetus' mouth, ears and nose. But after birth, if a baby cannot breathe and the birth attendant, if there is one, does not know how to clear the baby's airways, the baby will suffocate. The report shows the largest number of newborn deaths occurred in Southern Asia (39 percent), followed by sub-Saharan Africa (38 percent). Five countries accounted for half of all newborn deaths: India, Pakistan, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia. Children younger than 5 also are more likely to die from malaria than adults, which is one reason sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia have higher child mortality rates than other parts of the world.

Progress with vaccines

But there are bright spots in the report. A vaccine for yellow fever spared children's lives during an outbreak in Angola last year, and a new vaccine for malaria has proved effective for children. Tanzania has tackled air pollution, improved sanitation, and has worked to provide safe drinking water, which has also had a positive impact on child health there. Bustreo said the concentration of child deaths are increasingly occurring in countries that are either in acute conflict or in a chronic state of strife, such as Somalia, which has the highest child death rate. "That is important because it also links to not just the medical care, but also the social determinants of health, which, of course, include peace, stability and education, particularly girls' education," she said. Bustreo explains that a girl who is educated can take better care of herself, "she does not become pregnant too early, because that is another important social phenomenon that we're seeing that is early pregnancy associated with early and forced child marriage."

Part of the solution lies in multisectorial planning, better training for midwives, training for nurses and vaccines. Bustreo is dismayed that some parents in developed countries are refusing to get their children vaccinated against these diseases. Ongoing outbreaks of measles in Europe have claimed the lives of 35 children so far. She said this trend needs to be tackled aggressively. Parents in low- and middle-income countries want to see their children immunized against measles and other disabling or life-threatening diseases.Despite the overall gains in reducing child mortality, there's a sense of urgency among health officials. The U.N report said if current trends continue, about 60 million children younger than 5 will die between now and 2030, and half of them will be newborns.

http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/255242179/more-children-surviving-to-age-5

[waltky]

Nigerian Oil Spills Double Risk of Infant Mortality, Research Shows...
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Nigeria Oil Spills Double Risk of Infant Mortality, Research Shows
November 23, 2017 — Babies are much more likely to die in their first few weeks of life if their mothers live close to the site of an oil spill, according to new research. Scientists studied data on infant mortality and oil spills in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region – and describe their results as ‘shocking’.


It’s estimated that 240,000 barrels of crude oil are spilled into the Niger Delta every year. The environmental effects are clear to see – waterways running thick with the choking, black liquid; suffocated wildlife; dying mangroves. The effect on the people living in the delta is slowly coming to light. The study by scientists at Switzerland’s University of Saint Gallen is shocking: babies born in the delta are twice as likely to die in the first month of life if their mothers were living close to an oil spill before they became pregnant. Roland Hodler is lead researcher. “We looked at the birth histories of more than 2,500 Nigerian mothers," Hodler said. "And we compared siblings, some conceived before and some conceived after a nearby oil spill.”


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Oil is seen on the creek water's surface near an illegal oil refinery in Ogoniland, outside Port Harcourt, in Nigeria's Delta region

The researchers compared geographical data on 6,600 recent oil spills, with results from the 2013 national demographic and health survey. Their results show that even spills that happened five years before conception doubled the chances of babies dying after birth. However, spills that happened during pregnancy appeared to have little effect. “We think the main reason is that some of the negative health effects are just building up over time," Hodler said. "So, if you think about these negative health effects, these are due to skin contact with crude oil, or to drinking contaminated water or eating contaminated fish or crops. And also inhaling smoke from fires.”

It’s thought unborn and newborn infants are more vulnerable as they haven’t built up natural defenses. The study suggests the effects of oil spills will be felt long into the future. In 2015 the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell agreed to share the costs of the clean-up – an operation that the United Nations says will likely take 30 years. Critics say only a fraction of the money has been paid. Shell blames oil thieves for causing many of the spills. The Nigerian government did not respond to requests for comment.

https://www.voanews.com/a/nigeria-oil-spills-double-risk-of-infant-mortality-research-shows/4130195.html