Mother's Day and Mother's Index

Sunday 13th (second Sunday of May) is Mother's Day in several countries. Do you want to check if your country is a good place for mothers?

Image: Naypong / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Save the Children recently published a report titled Nutrition in the First 1,000 Days that presents the Mother's Index.


The Mother's Index is a combined ranking from Women's Index and Children's Index:

• Women's Index covers: lifetime risk of maternal death, percent of women using contraception, female life expectancy at birth, expected number of years of formal female education, maternity leave benefits (length and % of wages payment), ratio of estimated female to male earned income, government women's participation.
• Children's Index covers: under-5 mortality rate, gross pre-primary enrollment ratio.

The top best places to be a mother are:	The bottom places to be a mother are:
1 Norway 2 Iceland 3 Sweden 4 New Zealand 5 Denmark 6 Finland 7 Australia 8 Belgium 9 Ireland 10 Netherlands / United Kingdom	156 Dr Congo 156 South Sudan 156 Sudan 159 Chad 160 Eritrea 161 Mali 162 Guinea-Bissau 163 Yemen 164 Afghanistan 165 Niger

The report also presents the Infant and Toddler Score card that shows where young children have the best and the worst nutrition. It includes the percentage of children that were put to the breast within 1 hour of birth, exclusively breastfed (first 6 months), breastfed with complementary food (6-9 months), breastfed at age 2 (20-23 months).


Four developing countries scored very good (9 out of 10 score): Malawi, Madagascar, Peru and Solomon Islands. The worse countries in terms of this score were: Somalia, Côte d'Ivoire, Botswana and Equatorial Guinea.


The report also presents a comparison among developed countries in terms of breastfeeding.


Have a read, it's very interesting and informative and then, go and get something nice to your beloved mother!