The Importance Of Maternal And Child Health Progress On A Global Scale Essay

This paper will step out of the comfort of the first world American lifestyle and look beyond to the health and social issues around the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) is the leading stakeholder in advancing the awareness and support on global health issues along with the United Nations (UN) and other governmental and nongovernmental agencies. Only once the issues of these vulnerable people are identified can these organizations move forward in addressing and prioritizing the rapidly evolving global health agenda. The Millennium Development Goals will be defined briefly, however, since their goal completion date has ended, a future look at follow on program, Sustainable Development Goals seems the best place

The first problem that needs to be addressed is simply the lack of access for women in vulnerable populations to prenatal care. This is a major problem because we see that the rate of women who

Childbirth is one of the greatest privileges on the earth anyone could have and we, as women, should feel proud to be major contributors for it. Thus, a mother has to play a key role in aiding the healthcare workers to mitigate the health crisis associated with childbirth by performing her duties faithfully. One such associated health crisis is “Premature (preterm) birth” which occurs when the baby is born too early, before 37 weeks of gestational period (CDC, 2015). The rate of preterm birth ranges from 5% to 18% of babies born across 184 countries (WHO, 2015).

Maternal mortality represents more than the loss of lives for individual women, as it also reflects the larger value and prioritization of women 's health and threatens the health and survival of families, young children, and even the communities in which they live (Royston and Armstrong, 1989). Maternal mortality is unacceptably high (WHO, 2015b). Globally, approximately 830 women die every day from pregnancy- or childbirth-related complications (ibid.). The causes of maternal mortality are predominately preventable and can be classified into three fundamental causes: (1) medical - consisting of direct medical problems and pre-existent/coexistent medical problems that are aggravated by pregnancy, (2) underlying - social and legal conditions, and (3) health systems laws and policies that address availability, accessibility, and quality of reproductive health services (PHP et al, 2011).

The Journal of Global Health Perspectives is an online open-access research journal. In addition to publishing primary research they also publish articles that relate meaningful experiences, observations and reflections from members of the global health community. To publish an article in the journal the article had to be E mailed to them along with a signed copyright policy and indicate the category of the work. Current topics of interest are Child health inequality, Maternal health in India, Ebola eradication.

Watson and Mason’s article, “Power of the first Hour” and Risworth, et al.’s article “I was on the way to the Hospital but I Delivered in the Bush” both focus on aspects of maternal and infant care and demonstrate the fundamental differences between western policies enacted to improve women’s lives in developing countries and the local realty in those developing countries.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is an international organization present in 190 countries (Unicef, n.d.). It is an agency focused on the area of maternal and child health. Recently, the organization is providing fresh water and food for mothers and children, education for mothers and girls, and immunization programs for children (Unicef, n.d.). The advantages for this program are the benefits to the education and health of the women and children, but the disadvantages are ability to retrieve funds all the time, and providing care to everyone. They have to have a focused topic, like they do, in order to start to care for the population. There are many issues in the third world countries that go beyond the abilities of one organization,

Economic growth has much improved the infant mortality rate though better healthcare facilities and living conditions. Japan has fallen to one of the world’s lowest infant mortality levels at 3.6 per 1,000 live births in 2006 (Saigusa, 2006). Infant mortality is largely affected by the health of the mother, which makes pre-natal health imperative in keeping infant mortality rates low. Since Japan offers health care to all, access to prenatal care is easier to get therefore making mothers healthier and help in finding complications earlier in the pregnancy.

In the United States, the Department of Health and Human Services works tirelessly in order to improve the conditions for newborn infants. Their goal is to provide essential human services, as well as protect the health for all Americans. Specifically, the area of infant health focuses on the period of rapid development from birth to one year age. The factors that contribute to infant health is not only attributed to the child, but also extends to the health of the mother and their family support system as well. This area of healthcare is extremely important because it ensures the future health of the next generation. Infant health has many external factors, such as social, economic, and biological, that influence the well-being of the

Centre for Maternal and Child Enquiries (CMACE) (2011) Saving mothers’ lives; reviewing maternal deaths to make motherhood safer: 2006-2008. BJOG 18(1): 1-203. London. Blackwell Synergy.

The fifth goal is to increase maternal health in countries with a focus on reducing the maternal mortality rate by three-fourths and universal access to reproductive health both by 2015. Despite a 43% reduction in maternal deaths since 1990, there are still a large number of women who die during childbirth from preventable causes such as hemorrhaging (United Nations, 2015, p. 38).

In 2013, 289 000 women died during pregnancy and childbirth and it was estimated that everyday 800 women all over the world died from childbirth or childbirth-related problems (World Health Organization, 2014). Often, maternal mortality is found to occur more often in developing countries than developed countries. Maternal mortality refers women who died from the situation like during pregnancy, termination of pregnancy within 42 days, regardless of duration and place of pregnancy, from aggravation caused by the pregnancy or pregnancy management (Nwagha et al, 2010). Maternal mortality may be resulted from direct or indirect cause. Direct causes are from obstetric complications of pregnancy, labour, and puerperium, and interventions whereas indirect causes are from the worsening of current conditions by pregnancy or delivery (Givewell, 2009). This paper aims to examine the causes for maternal mortality in both developed and developing countries and will end with a proposal for government to ensure women are given reproductive health rights.

"The failure to engage in the fight to anticipate, prevent, and ameliorate global health problems would diminish America's stature in the realm of health and jeopardize our own 
health, economy, and national security, " stated by The Institute of Medicine. Global health refers to health phenomenon that transcends across national borders. For instance, global health would address predicaments such as: infectious and insect-borne diseases that can spread from one country to another. Thus, global health should be addressed by collaborative actions and solutions. On the other hand, countries tend to focus on other essential issues that are occurring in the present day and therefore, overlook the global health issue. Some issues that countries

The current death rate is 29 per 1,000 live births and of the 2.8 million newborns dying at birth worldwide, India accounts for 700,000 children dying at birth or shortly after. The National Health Policy to improve care children and women. Poor neonatal health conditions, widespread illiteracy, poverty, poor sanitation and nutrition have also been identified and India’s hopes to tackle these issues by passing this policy.

Most of the children deaths occur due to pneumonia, preterm birth complications, intra-partum related complications, diarrhea and malaria. The issues that prevails, is the fact that universal access to basic social services is not available, and poverty.