• Submitted by: lena campos
• Health and Medicine
• 05 / 11 / 2012

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Cuba was ranked the number-one country of Latin America to be a mother, reads a report by the Save the Children, a non-governmental organization based in London.

According to Prensa Latina, the next best countries in the region are
Argentina and Uruguay, while those suffering the worst conditions to be a
mum are Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala, based on the report that
evaluates the state of mothers in 165 countries.

The study takes into account different factors such as the general health
situation of the country the educational, economic and political status
of the mother-to-be; as well as the children’s wellbeing that includes the
mortality rate before five and the percentage of malnutrition.
 
The report says the best country to be a mother of the world is Norway,
followed by Iceland and Sweden, and then there is Australia and Canada in
the fourth and fifth places; meanwhile, in a large part of the Sub-Saharan
Africa the conditions to be a mother are alarming.

Estimates say in that region of the planet, women’s life expectancy is 56
years, one every 16 die from pregnancy complications and only five percent
use modern contraceptive methods, while one every three children are
threatened by malnutrition.

The NGO warned that if government policies remain unchanged, at least 450
million children will suffer malnutrition within the next 15 years in the
poorest countries of the world.

Save the Children insists that breast feeding alone could prevent the
death of one million children a year; however, the report points out that
less than 40 percent of the new-born in developing country benefit from
this practice.

Fuente: ACN