CAIRO: Egypt ranked 57 in the State of the World’s Mothers index, which compares the wellbeing of mothers and children in 160 countries.
In commemoration of Mother’s Day, NGO Save the Children published its eleventh annual State of the World’s Mothers report which focuses on the critical shortage of health workers in the developing world and the urgent need for more female health workers to save the lives of mothers, newborn babies and young children.
The report included two separate indices for women and children. However, due to different weight indicators and rounding, it is possible for a country to rank high on the women’s or children’s index but not score high in the overall Mother’s Index.
Egypt ranked number 61 in the Women’s Index and 24 in the Children’s Index.
The Women’s Index includes the health, economic and political status of women. In Egypt, it was found that the lifetime risk of maternal death is one in every 230 women; 79 percent of the births are attended by skilled health personnel; 58 percent of women are using modern contraception and the female life expectancy is 72 years.
The report also stated that the expected number of years of formal schooling for females is 10, while the economic status was measured in the ratio of estimated female to male earned income, which is 0.27.
As for political status, it was measured by the participation of women in government which found that women hold only two percent of the seats.
The Children’s Index indicated the status of children and was measured in five areas. The under five mortality rate in Egypt is 23 deaths per 1,000 live births. It also indicated that eight percent of children under five are moderately or severely underweight for their age.
The gross primary enrollment in school in Egypt is 100 percent, while the secondary enrollment is 70 percent.
The last indictor is the percentage of the population with access to safe water, which in Egypt is 98 percent.
Save the Children is an international nonprofit organization “fighting to give millions more children a chance at life” whose goal is to see the achievement of the fourth Millennium Development Goal, which is reducing child mortality.
Every year 50 million women in the developing world give birth with no professional help and 8.8 million children and newborns die from easily preventable or treatable causes.
This report identifies countries that have invested in training and deploying more female health workers and shows how these women are delivering lifesaving health care to some of the poorest and hardest-to-reach mothers and babies. It identifies strategies and approaches that are succeeding in the fight to save lives and shows that effective solutions to this challenge are affordable, even in the world’s poorest countries.
“More investment is needed in the appropriate training, regulation, equitable deployment and support of midwives and other female health providers, so that mothers, newborns and children in the developing world have access to comprehensive, cost-effective, lifesaving services, ” said President of the International Confederation of Midwives, Bridget Lynch, in her foreword in the report.
The report was launched on May 5, to coincide with the annual International Day of the Midwife.
Among the report’s key findings is that an alarming number of countries can’t provide the most basic health care that would save the lives of mothers and children as worldwide there are 57 countries with critical health workforce shortage, which is less than 23 doctors, nurses and midwives per 10,000 people; 36 of these countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The report also states that female health workers have an especially critical role to play in saving the lives of women, newborns and young children.
Another key finding is that relatively modest investments in female health workers can have a measurable impact on survival rates in isolated rural communities.
They have also found that the most effective health care often begins at home or very close to home. Furthermore, countries that deploy more front-line female health workers have seen dramatic declines in maternal, newborn and child mortality.
“More than 90 years of experience have shown us that when mothers have health care, education and economic opportunity, both they and their children have the best chance to survive and thrive,” said CEO of Save the Children, Jasmine Whitbread, and President and CEO of Save the Children USA, Charles F. MacCormack in the introduction of the report.
Save the Children is working on four fronts as part of their global newborn and child survival campaign. It works on increasing awareness of the challenges and solutions to maternal, newborn and child survival. It also encourages action by mobilizing citizens around the world to support programs to reduce maternal, new born and child mortality.
The NGO also works in partnership with local health ministries and local organizations to deliver high quality health services throughout the developing world.
Finally, it is leading the way in research on what works best to save the lives of babies in the first month of life.
