Mothers' Day for mums around the world

Many women shun pre-natal health services which provide education to mothers and identify high risk births. They are not attended by trained health staff who can provide necessary mother and child care, and have little knowledge of proper hygiene and infant care - key determinants in mother and child survival.

Through funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000, Save the Children has been working to prevent newborn illness and death among babies most at risk of dying in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Since the project commenced, more than 20 million mothers and babies have been reached with essential health services.

With an additional Gates Foundation grant received in December 2005, Save the Children is focusing on ways to identify and promote the large-scale adoption in 18 countries of proven, low-cost tools and approaches that address the three main killers of one-week-old babies - infections, lack of oxygen supply to a baby during delivery and at birth, and low birth weight.

As the report says “No investment in global health has a greater return than saving the life of a child”.