To mark World Health Day, commemorated today, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the campaign “Healthy mothers and children: I have the right to good health, and my mother, too, reducing the deaths of children and women during pregnancy and after childbirth.”
The goal is to involve governments, firms, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), communities, and individuals in the fight for maternal and infant health.
The WHO wants everyone to recognize women’s right to pregnancy and childbirth without risks and children’s right to a healthy life.
A study released yesterday by the WHO estimates that, annually, nearly 11 million children and over a half million women around the world die as a result of problems that could have been avoided.
The study also informs that 529 thousand women die each year during pregnancy and 3.3 million babies are stillborn.
The director of the Department of Programmatic and Strategic Health Care Activities of Brazil’s Ministry of Health, Tereza Campos, said that last year Lula’s Administration launched the national pact for the reduction of maternal and neonatal mortality.
Campos pointed out that many women and children still die in Brazil from causes that could have been prevented. According to her, joint actions are being developed by municipal health departments, health services, and state health departments to turn this situation around, with the goal of reducing maternal and neonatal mortality by 15%.
In her view, some situations could be avoided through adequate accompaniment. “First, women need to receive qualified care in a health center, and, for this, they need to begin prenatal care early. In fact, women are expected to have at least six prenatal examinations,” she explained.
World Health Day was established in 1950 to make the population more aware of major public health problems.
Translation: David Silberstein
Agência Brasil