Last week, Save the Children released its 2012 ‘State of the World’s Mothers Report’, which ranks the best and worse countries to be a mother (and a child). This year’s winner is, once again, Norway, followed by Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand and Denmark. On the negative side, Niger is stated as the worst country to be a mother, followed by Afghanistan, Yemen, Guinea-Bissau and Mali.
This year’s report pays special attention to nutrition, which is one of the main causes of problems in the developing world. It remarks the importance of breastfeeding and the need to implement policies that allow women to breastfeed their children without any impediments. The authors of the report support the idea that a mother should exclusively breastfeed her child for the first six months, after that complementing it with other comestibles until the age of 2.
The report provides a series of recommendations to improve the situation all around the world. Among them, to ‘invest in health workers’, ‘help more girls go to school and stay in school’ and ‘improve laws, policies and actions that support families.’
In the case of Norway, there is a combination of high education, excellent health care service, protective laws and high use of modern contraceptive methods, which allow women to decide when they want to be mothers.
The ‘mother’s index’ is founded on a series of indicators based on women’s health, economic, educational and political status, as well as on children’s well fair.
Source: Save the Children, State of the World’s Mothers Report
Photo: worak/flickr
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