ACCORDING TO A NEW REPORT FROM SAVE THE CHILDREN
JOHANNESBURG Save the Children’s thirteenth State of the
World’s Mothers report states that South Africa has slipped quite
dramatically from a ranking of 19 in 2011 to a ranking of 33 in 2012, on a
listing of about 80 less developed countries around the world[i] –
showing that South Africa is no longer such a good place to become a mother.
The ranking looks at factors such as mother’s 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 to be a mother in the world,
replacing Afghanistan for the first time in two years. Norway comes in at first
place.
The slip in rankings for South Africa is largely due
to its slipping performance relative to other countries on a number of
indicators[ii]:
The Good News
- Women hold 41 percent 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.
- At 57 under-5 deaths per 1,000 live births, 1 child in 18 will not live to see his/her fifth birthday
- Nearly 1 child in 10 (9%) is underweight for 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 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, and
combating under-nutrition and anemia for mothers.
New research for the State of the World’s Mothers Report, Save the
Children found that the simple measure of supporting 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 health workers’ 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. Joy Lawn of
Save the Children, 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.” Children
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.
South Africa has the potential and the opportunity to
do better for our mothers and children. On this mothers’ day, we need focus on going
in the right direction, not slipping further.
Individuals
wanting to join EVERY ONE, Save
the Children’s Newborn and Child Survival campaign, can visit www.savethechildren.net and sign our petition to help world leaders
commit to saving children's lives. This website will also host the charity’s
live interactive video conference discussing Motherhood on the 8th of
May with high-profile Global Mothers.
For more
information, a full copy of the State of the World’s Mothers’ report and
interviews, please contact Ms. Lesego Mongale from INZALO COMMUNICATIONS on
Tel: +27 11 646 9992; Fax: +27 11 646 9938; Cell: +27 73 266 6025.
ENDS
Notes to the
Editors
·
One in 4 (24%) children under age 5 are
stunted which is a high enough percentage to be a public health concern. Thus,
South Africa is home to over 1 million stunted children, i.e. an estimated 1.2
million. This is related to both HIV/AIDS and to undernutrition and both need
to be tackled urgently.
·
South Africa is identified as a country which
is underperforming relative to their national wealth[iii]. Although the country’s stunting rate is lower
than that found in some other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including its
regional neighbours[iv],
it is much higher than that found in countries with a similar level of national
wealth i.e. relative to its income peers like Bulgaria & Montenegro, both
under 10%, and Romania, 13%[v].
·
The poorest South African children tend to
have the poorest dietary quality, and the wealthiest children are almost three
times as likely to consume meat, milk and other high quality foods, as the
poorest children.
·
Although 61% of South African infants are put
to the breast within one hour of birth ( i.e."good" coverage,
according to WHO performance thresholds), only 8% of mothers are exclusively
breastfeeding for the first six months, less than half (49%) of all infants are
introduced to complementary foods on time and less than 1 in 3 (31%) infants
are still receiving any breast milk at 2 years of age. This is similar to
Somalia (9%). The only African countries with lower rates are Chad, Cote
D’Ivoire and Gabon.
·
South Africa’s high infant, child and maternal
mortality is to AIDS, in addition to birth complications and newborn conditions,
as well as malnutrition, etc. In fact, there are 5.2 million people living with
AIDS – which is 10% of the population.
[i] The State of the World’s Mothers report
compares three tiers of countries: Tier 1 are 43 more developed countries, Tier
2 are 81 less developed countries, of which South Africa is a part, and Tier 3
are forty least developed countries. [i] We
acknowledge that eachcountry has different development contexts.
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