On World Health Day , Burnet deputy director, gender equity, diversity and inclusion, Professor Caroline Homer AO and P rofessor Joshua Vogel , shared their thoughts on the importance of ensuring healthy beginnings for mothers and babies so we can have hopeful futures.
World Health Day is celebrated each year on 7 April, the anniversary of the foundation of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1948.
This year's theme is 'healthy beginnings, hopeful futures', highlighting the critical importance of improving maternal and newborn health, wellbeing and survival.
Each year, more than 300,000 women die due to pregnancy or childbirth; more than 2 million babies die in their first month of life, and more than 2 million more are stillborn.
These numbers are staggering - even more concerning is that these statistics have not decreased significantly during the last decade. Each death represents incredible sadness, trauma and heartache for millions of parents, families and the wider community.
Many of these deaths occur in the poorest countries in the world, among those facing conflict and other crises. War, famine, displacement, floods, cyclones and earthquakes pose a huge threat to the health of mothers and babies.
Conflict and other crises often result in the closure of essential healthcare facilities, a lack of availability of medicines and the loss or disruption of essential utilities and telecommunication services.
Pregnant women need regular access to healthcare services; postponing essential care can result in severe and sometimes life-threatening consequences.
Based on current trends, it has been estimated that a staggering 80% of countries will not meet the United Nations' global targets for improving maternal survival by 2030 and one in 3 will fail to meet targets for reducing newborn deaths.
Recent and dramatic cuts to global health funding mean this situation will worsen. Many programs providing critical health services have stalled, alongside a lack of vital medical research focused on pregnant and breastfeeding women and children.
Burnet Institute has a strong focus on improving the health of women, children and adolescents. Our work has a clear emphasis on maternal and newborn health.
One of our projects is the Global Maternal and Newborn Platform (GMP), which is being implemented in collaboration with the WHO and 10 countries in the Asia-Pacific. This project aims to measure and improve the quality of care provided to mothers and babies at the time of birth and immediately after birth. The project is being conducted in 74 hospitals across Bangladesh, Fiji, Indonesia, Mongolia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste. For the first time, GMP is generating critical data on how to improve labour, childbirth and early postnatal care for women and babies in the Asia-Pacific region.
The next 5 years are critical to improving maternal and newborn healthcare across the world.
Healthy communities are only possible if we have healthy mothers and babies, and the world cannot afford to go backwards on the progress we have made in this space.
Many challenges are ahead, but we need to keep a clear focus on ensuring healthy beginnings so we can have hopeful futures.
