This page is background information, last updated in May 2002 and still available for reference. For the latest on the Special Session on Children, please go to the Special Session index.

Education for women is key to saving babies’ lives

NEW YORK, 7 May 2002 - Lupe, an unmarried Bolivian teenager, was eight months pregnant when her water broke and she began contractions. After phoning her mother, Cristina, she checked into a private clinic near her home, thinking it would offer better care than a nearby public hospital.

But a clinic doctor told her that she would not have her baby for another week, and that she should merely drink water to "refill her bag." He told her the pain she was experiencing was indigestion, not labour pains.

Luckily, Cristina, her mother, worked as a nanny for Virginia Quiroga, the First Lady of Bolivia, who also knew Lupe well. Mrs. Quiroga tracked them down at the clinic, and when she heard about Lupe's condition and what the doctor had said, she rushed there and physically carried Lupe to another hospital. There it was discovered that not only was Lupe in labour, but the baby was in distress, and a caesarean section had to be performed right away. Lupe and her baby both survived.

When Ms. Quiroga, who is now the baby's proud godmother, later asked Cristina why the mother and daughter had not argued with the first doctor, Cristina replied that they didn't want to bother anyone. "He was the doctor," she said.

Mrs. Quiroga recounted the story at a Special Session side event called 'Healthy Mothers -- Healthy Babies', which focused on the dire state of newborns' health worldwide. Some 40 per cent of under-five deaths occur in the first 28 days of life.

"Lupe and her baby almost died, not because of lack of prenatal care or poor nutrition, not because she decided to give birth at home without proper care, not even because of complications during the birth," she said. "They almost died from lack of self-esteem."

Mrs. Quiroga used the anecdote to underscore her point that leaders must focus attention on education to build self-esteem and thereby reinforce the right of all women to obtain information and make decisions about their health and that of their babies. Otherwise, she said, "all of the other measures and interventions -- the easier ones, the more measurable ones -- that we are spending millions of dollars and millions of hours on will only scratch the surface when it comes to saving these priceless lives."

Several speakers at the meeting noted that care for newborn babies often falls between the cracks in existing public health programmes. A lack of emergency obstetric care and trained birth attendants are other major problems.

One message that emerged was the importance of educating women about things they can do to improve newborns' chances. Breastfeeding, for instance, reduces the risk of infant disease and death and helps families space out births. Longer intervals between births can reduce malnutrition of children and mothers and decrease the chances that women will die during pregnancy or childbirth.

Some countries have also been successful recently at reducing neonatal tetanus, a major cause of infant death.

Partnership among policy makers and health workers and agencies is the key to reducing neonatal mortality, said Dr. Zilda Arns Neumann, Executive Director of Pastoral da Crianca, an organization that promotes child health in Brazil. She expressed hope that with collaboration among all the UN agencies, non-governmental organizations and world leaders present at the Special Session, dramatic improvements could be achieved in reducing newborn deaths in the next decade.

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