Best And Worst Places To Be A Mother In 2013

Baby shopping is one of the most exciting preparations for parenthood pregnant couples can make — if they are financially comfortable. For parents-to-be who are living in poverty, the obligation to gather a crib, clothes, and other basic products for their little one represents something quite different.

Baby gear may be nothing but a blip on the radar when you look at the costs of raising a child over 18 years, but that is concerning rather than encouraging if you've got no idea where it will all come from. Should you go into debt? Ask around for hand-me-downs? Do without yourself so your baby's basic needs can be met? And that's only the start. How about the cost of prenatal care and labor and delivery?

The maternity package comes in a colorful cardboard box, and contains everything from baby clothes to cloth diapers, and from bath products to bedding. Then, there are breast pads and.... condoms. 

Disposable diapers and baby bottles were part of the maternity package the Finnish government makes available to every mother — regardless of her socioeconomic status — not too long ago as well. But the Finnish government wants to look after the environment too, and would like mothers to breastfeed, so these products were scrapped. Most innovative of all, the cardboard box itself has a small mattress in the bottom, and doubles up as a crib that many mothers use.

Mothers who don't want the box can opt to receive a maternity grant of €140 instead, but the box is worth much more.

The maternity package provided to all Finnish mothers for many decades now provides a fitting metaphor for the Finnish Welfare State. It is a state that prioritizes families so much that Finland is officially the best place in the world to be a mother.

What Is The Mother's Index?

The 14^th Mothers' Index was published by Save The Children in May. It is part of Save The Children's annual State of the World's Mothers report, and this in turn serves to demonstrate the link between the well-being of mothers and children. “Any report on the state of the world's mothers is by definition a report on the state of the world, full stop,” Save The Children says.

The Index ranks 176 countries according to five indicators of a mother's overall well-being. Only a few countries — like North Korea and the Palestinian territories — for which not enough data is available, are left out of the Index. The remaining countries are ranked according to:

• Maternal health, namely the maternal mortality rate

• The mortality rate of children under five

• The number of years of formal primary and secondary education women are expected to receive

• Income, more precisely gross national income per capita

• The political status of women, measured by the number of women that participate in government

Great progress has been achieved in the world since 1970. The number of children under five who die has decreased by more than half, despite the fact that the population has more than doubled. Yet, there are still plenty of problems.

Three million newborns die on an annual basis, while 6.9 million children will die before their fifth birthday — often from preventable causes. Meanwhile, 287,000 women die in childbirth every year. How does your country measure up against other countries in the Mothers' Index?

Which Countries Are Most Family-Friendly?

We've already spoken about Finland, where the risk of maternal death is less than one in 12,000, and 2.9 in 1,000 children will die before age five. Girls are expected to receive nearly 17 years of primary and secondary education, and 42 percent of parliamentary seats are taken up by women.

Which country ranks lowest? It's the “Democratic Republic” of Congo, where one in 30 mothers die in childbirth and 167.7 children per 1,000 will die before they reach age five. Only 8.3 percent of governmental seats are taken up by women, who are expected to receive just over eight years of formal education in their lifetime.

How does your country rank on the Mothers' Index? The Top Five are taken up by Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and the Netherlands. These are all European countries, as you see, and Australia was the only non-European country to rank within the Top Ten, at a sad 10.

According to Save The Children, this is because the US has the highest premature birth rate in the developed world as well. One in eight babies are born before they should be (perhaps because the national c-section rate is sky high at nearly one-third of births as well?).

The US also has a high teenage pregnancy rate, and teen moms are both less likely to receive quality prenatal care and to finish their education. Is the Mothers' Index a wake up call for all Americans who have the power to change something? We'll see.

The United Kingdom (not broken down into its individual countries, though that would be interesting to see) ranks 23^rd, while Canada takes 22^nd place. South Africa is at number 77, and India at 142.

The Mother's Index is fascinating to look at. In some ways, it's very telling — mortality rates form an objective measurement that's hard to argue with. On the other hand, I don't personally believe that years of formal schooling and female participation in government necessarily say that much.

The country in which I'm currently living with my family ranks 36^th in the 2013 Mothers' Index. It's a developing economy, and though mortality rates are fairly low, there's much more to family well-being than that. The Mother's Index doesn't show that five percent of school-aged children aren't enrolled in the compulsory primary education system, for instance, or that one in seven children go hungry every evening. Nor does it show that four percent of children between the ages of five and 14 are engaged in some type of employment, despite labor laws that ban this practice.

The conclusion? The Mother's Index tells a significant part of the story, but certainly not all of it.

Key Findings In The State Of The World's Mothers Report

Wondering what the State of the World's Mothers report, which delves deeper than the Mothers' Index, found?

Around one million babies die on the day they were born worldwide every year. Eight thousand newborns die within their first month of life every month, and 800 mothers a day die in childbirth. Forty million women give birth without the help of a skilled attendant each year. The vast majority of newborn and maternal deaths take place in developing countries (98 and 99 percent respectively), mostly due to lack of access to basic health care and hygiene.

The good news is that maternal and child mortality rates are declining faster than ever before. Maternal deaths and child deaths after the first month of life have dropped by 47 percent since 1990, and countries are implementing changes that serve to improve the situation even more.

The report points out that Malawi is actively promoting breastfeeding and skin-to-skin contact to keep babies warm, while Nepal and Nigeria are using disinfecting gels to prevent umbilical cord infections. Uganda has introduced the more widespread use of prenatal steroids to prevent death following premature birth, and Ethiopia is starting a country-wide campaign that involves thousands of healthcare workers in the fight against newborn infections. Dozens of countries have halved newborn mortality over the last 10 years.

Save The Children is proposing a set of low-cost and high-impact measures to further reduce maternal, under-five, and newborn mortality. These include promotion of breastfeeding and inexpensive medical interventions such as injectable antibiotics.