Thursday, November 11, 2010

State of The World's Mothers 2010


Women on the Front Lines of Health Care

Why doesn’t the United States do better in the rankings?

The United States ranked 28th this year based on several factors:

One of the key indicators used to calculate well-being for mothers is lifetime risk of maternal death. The United States’ rate for maternal mortality is 1 in 4,800 – one of the highest in the developed world. Thirty-five out of 43 developed countries performed better than the United States on this indicator, including all the Western, Northern and Southern European countries (except Estonia and Albania) as well as Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Hungary, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine. A woman in the Unites States is more than five times as likely as a woman in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece or Italy to die from pregnancy-related causes in her lifetime and her risk of maternal death is nearly 10-fold that of a woman in Ireland.

Similarly, the United States does not do as well as many other countries with regard to under-5 mortality.The U.S. under-5 mortality rate is 8 per 1,000 births.This is on par with rates in Slovakia and Montenegro.Thirty-eight countries performed better than the U.S. on this indicator. At this rate, a child in the U.S. is more than twice as likely as a child in Finland, Iceland, Sweden or Singapore to die before his or her fifth birthday.

The United States has the least generous maternity leave policy – both in terms of duration and percent of wages paid – of any wealthy nation.

The United States is also lagging behind with regard to the political status of women. Only 17 percent of seats in the House of Representatives are held by women, compared to 46 percent of seats in Sweden and 43 percent in Iceland.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Robin Lim's Placenta

One of my mentors and dear friends wrote a book recently entitled, "Placenta, The Forgotten Chakra". The illustrations, photographs and words are all world changing graphics. I am only a few pages into the book and already being wowed over and over. Also, there are concepts explained in such clear language that I am finally understanding them deeper. The story of her dog, Madu giving birth to nine puppies and reviving the still-born pup by stimulating the pup's body and placenta is as awe-some as when it happened to a newborn human babe the same week!

You will want to get a copy of this book asap. If you are going to the MANA Conference in Nashville, you can hear her speak and pick one up there. Here are a few qoutes that stick out to me so far:


"The natural process of bringing new human life into the world became a medical event in which the mother-to-be was hospitalized, drugged and the baby was delivered from her, not by her."

"Medicine became divorced from nature and forgot to respect the diversity of human culture and tradition. Somehow in the application of such efficiency, we lost our humanity at the fulcrum of the most tender of life’s moments: the birth of a child."

It may not even be assed whether everyone is ready for the umbilical cord to be cut; it is just assumed and done very soon after the baby's body is born. Lim reminds us to pause and asses:

"At birth, it is important to be sure that the baby, placenta, mother and family are truly ready for the umbilical cord to be cut."

"Following parturition (birth) the placenta falls neatly away from the shrinking uterine wall and is born approximately eleven to twenty minutes after the baby. The birth of the placenta is best accomplished without complications if the mother is properly nourished and has the energy reserves necessary to accomplish this third stage of labor."