Best reasons to stand up for mothers this Mother’s Day – UN News
But for hundreds of thousands of women worldwide, this gratitude only goes so far, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said on the occasion of Mother’s Day, which is celebrated on a Sunday in May.
According to recently released data, every two minutes a woman dies from pregnancy or childbirth, with the vast majority of these deaths being due to preventable causes such as bleeding and infectionsaccording to the UN reproductive health agency.
Even worse, solutions to these problems have been around for decades; but they require immediate investment in family planning and for the world to handle her steeply shortage of midwiveswhich UNFPA reports estimate could prevent two-thirds of all maternal and neonatal deaths.
“We have the tools, knowledge and resources to end preventable maternal death; what we need now is the political willsaid UNFPA Executive Director Natalia Kanem.
This is why mothers need support now more than ever.
Maternal mortality at crisis level
Between 2000 and 2015, global maternal mortality fell by more than a third, but the rate of decline has since stagnated in several regions and even reversed in others, UNFPA reported.
This has resulted in a as many as 287,000 maternal deaths in 2020 — a death toll that would dominate headlines if related to a natural disaster or other crisis, the agency showed.
“It is unacceptable that so many women continue to die needlessly during pregnancy and childbirth. More than 280,000 deaths in one year is unconscionable,” said the UNFPA chief. can and should be better.”
UNFPA State of the World Population Report.
Lack of choices
According to UNFPA, all too often women and girls cannot decide whether to become pregnant.
An alarming four in ten women with a partner in 68 countries were not capable of exercising freedom of choice when it came down to it healthcare, sex or contraception. Meanwhile, some data suggests that rape-related pregnancies are at least as common as pregnancies resulting from consensual sex.
These and other factors lead to a neglected global crisisin which nearly half of all pregnancies around the world are unintended, with serious negative consequences for many of those affected, the agency said.
Complications of pregnancy and childbirth can be deadly, especially for adolescents and girls, UNFPA said, noting that a an estimated half a million births were to girls aged 10-14 in 2021, making hundreds of thousands of mothers while still in childhood.
The staggering number of unintended pregnancies represents a global failure to uphold the basic human rights of women and girls,” said Ms. Kanem.
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Give hope to a mother in need this Mother’s Day
Preferences ignored
In November 2022, the world’s population will reach eight billion. While some received this news with admiration for the advances in health care and poverty reduction that led to this landmark moment, others wrung their hands, concerned that there are “too many” or “too few” people on the planet, according to UNFPA.
This mindset implicitly puts women’s bodies in a position to be solutions to the assumed problem of population expansion – a dangerous idea. Historically, this reasoning has led to coercive policies designed to affect women’s fertility, which put their rights at risk while their desires are denied, the agency said.
According to UNFPA’s 2023 State of the World Population report, 8 billion strong, many women want larger or smaller families than they reach.
For example, in most sub-Saharan African countries, women report an average of two or more births than desired, while a majority of childless women in Japan said they wanted children.
The report also shows that in low- and middle-income countries only one in four women achieves the desired fertility.
“What women and mothers want when it comes to their fertility matters,” the agency said. “Unfortunately, too often no one asks.”
A procession of mothers carry their newborn daughters to trees to celebrate their birth.
Start with gender equality
Avoidable maternal deaths, denial of rights or demographic change can all be addressed by making the world a more gender-equal place.
Of course, this is easier said than done, but the role of gender inequality at the root of so many other problems, including those mentioned above, needs to be recognized, the agency said.
Gender inequality is what keeps women away from the labor market and schoolsvulnerable to conflict and violence, and denies them the right to make decisions about their own bodies and health, the agency said, adding that it is also what makes pregnancy a dangerous undertakingone that hundreds of thousands of women do not survive.
“This Mother’s Day, mean it as you thank the mother figures in your life by working to save their lives. They, in turn, will thank you by thrivingUNFPA said.
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