Sweden Ranked As Best Place To Be Mom

Copenhagen, Denmark (AHN) - Nordic countries dominate the top while countries in sub-Saharan Africa dominate the bottom levels of the best and worst places to be a mother and a child.

The Mother's Index of US-based global humanitarian organization Save the Children highlighted in the organization's State of the World's Mothers 2008 report compares the well-being of mothers and children in 146 countries.

The top 10 best places to be a mother are Sweden, Norway, Iceland, New Zealand, Denmark, Australia, Finland, Ireland, Germany, and France. These countries, in general, have very high scores for mothers' and children's health, educational and economic status while the 10 bottom-ranked countries are a reverse image, performing poorly on all indicators.

The worst 10 worst places to be a mother are Ethiopia, Mali, Djibouti, Eritrea, Guineau-Bissau, Angola, Sierra Leone, Yemen, Chad, and Niger. Conditions for mothers and their children in countries at the bottom of the Index are bleak. On average, one in 21 mothers will die in her lifetime from pregnancy-related causes. More than one child in six dies before her fifth birthday, and roughly one in three suffers from malnutrition, and only three girls for every four boys are enrolled in primary school.

"A mother's well-being is connected to her children's well-being. It is not surprising, then, that in the worst places to be a mom, both women and children die young," said Charles MacCormack, president and CEO of Save the Children.

"There is a great divide between the status of mothers' health and well-being in rich and poor countries. In rich nations, where women have access to basic health care, giving birth is usually a time of joy. But in poor countries, where there is little or no access to skilled health workers, it is typically tragic. Every woman in the 10 worst countries is likely to suffer the unbearable loss of a child in her lifetime," added MacCormack, referring to the Mother's Index rankings.