SA slips in rankings of world's best places to be a mother

The ranking looks at factors such as a mothers' health, education and economic status, as well as critical child indicators such as health and nutrition. The report also shows that Niger is the worst place in the world to be a mother, replacing Afghanistan for the first time in two years. Norway comes in at first as the best place.

The slip in ranking for South Africa is largely due to its performance relative to other countries on a number of indicators:

The Good News:

• Women hold 41 % of parliamentary seats - the 5th highest share in the world.
  
• 60 % of women are using a modern method of contraception.
  
• 90% of births are attended by skilled health personnel.
  
• South Africa does a good job of getting children into primary and secondary school, with gross enrollment ratios of 102 and 94, respectively.
  
• Girls can expect to receive 12 years of formal education.

The Bad News:

• A girl can expect to live, on average, only to 54 years old - that's the 5th lowest female life expectancy amongst the less developed countries. In fact, this is on par with or worse than many of the least developed countries in the world.
  
• Tragically, 1 woman in 100 will die from a pregnancy-related cause.
  
• 1 child in 18 will not live to see his/her fifth birthday.
  
• Nearly 1 child in 10 (9%) is underweight for their age.
  
• Nearly 10% (9%) of the population lacks access to safe drinking water
  
• Women earn only 60 cents for every dollar earned by men

The slip in ranking calls for a host of measures in order to improve the range of indicators listed under 'the bad news', including better quality of obstetric care, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and treatment of women with HIV, newborn care and exclusive breastfeeding, as well as combating under-nutrition and anemia in mothers.

In new research for the report, Save the Children found that the simple measure of encouraging mums to breastfeed could save up to one million children's lives a year, globally. Only 8% of South African mums breastfeed - this is amongst the lowest rates in the world, and almost the same as Somalia at 9%.

Dr Joy Lawn of Save the Children says, "If the government and non-state actors had to together push a single strategy that would rapidly improve South Africa's child mortality, we would recommend ensuring that, along with PMTCT strategies, babies are breastfed exclusively up to 6 months of age."

Save the Children also advocates that breastfeeding counseling skills are a core part of healthworkers' roles, especially at the community level. Several African countries have recently increased the percentage of babies exclusively breastfeeding to 6 months - for example in Ghana this is now at 63%, eight times higher than in South Africa.

Save the Children is working in South Africa to ensure that infants are exclusively breastfed, even when the mother is infected with HIV. "South Africa now has a great government policy on the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV that promotes breastfeeding," says Dr. Lawn, but infected mothers continue to believe that they should not breastfeed for fear that they will pass on the infection to their babies.

"With the right treatment of antiretroviral (ARVs) breastfeeding is safe - and recommended because it protects the baby from a host of other infections, especially in areas where, due to a lack of access to sanitation and clean water, for instance, the risk of diarrhea and other diseases is high," Dr Lawn explains. Children who are not properly breastfed are also at risk of being short for their age (stunting), which is about 18-24% in South Africa despite relatively high income levels.

Individuals wanting to join EVERY ONE, Save the Children's Newborn and Child Survival campaign, can visit www.savethechildren.net for more information.

For more information, a full copy of the State of the World's Mothers' report and interviews, contact Lesego Mongale from Inzalo Communications on +27 11 646 9992 or email: moc.olazni@ogeseL