Not-so-Happy Mother's Day

A new report called the "State of the World's Mother's Report" says that the US has the worst infant and maternal fatality rate of any industrialized country, with the exception of Latvia. An estimated 2 million babies die in the first 24 hours of life in the US and about 5 in every 1000 babies dies. For African-Americans, the mortality rate is nearly double that of the U.S. as a whole, with 9.3 deaths per 1,000 births.

However, this is nothing compared to the mortality rate of infants and mothers in developing countries, where 98 percent of infant and maternal deaths occur. The report cited the following:

The Mothers' Index -- which excluded some nations that lacked sufficient data -- highlights huge disparities between the nations at the top and the bottom of the list.

"This report challenges us to do as much to protect mothers and children in poor countries as we do in rich countries," wrote Gates, herself a mother of three.

Compared with mothers in the top 10 countries, a mother in the bottom 10 was found to be more than 750 times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth.

In top-ranked Sweden, skilled personnel are present at nearly all births, but in bottom-ranked Niger, such help is available for only 16 percent of women in labor.

Virtually all Swedish women can read, nearly three-quarters use modern contraception and only one in 333 will have a child die before its first birthday. In Niger, by contrast, 10 percent of women are literate, 4 percent use modern contraception and one in seven children die in their first year.

I would say that this makes me gald that I was born in the US, and that my son was born in the US. But then I just get depressed thinking about how many women die in childbirth, and how many infants die in childbirth. I think that either would destroy me on the inside.