SENATORS’ STATEMENTS — Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Week
May 28, 2019
Honourable senators, the second week in May marked Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Week in Canada. This recognition helps focus our attention to the health and well-being of women and children around the world. Over the past two decades, a concerted international effort has significantly improved women’s neonatal and children’s health awareness and outcomes. More women are surviving pregnancy and childbirth, infant mortality rates are declining and more children are living to celebrate their fifth birthdays’ and beyond.
While measurable progress is being made, there is still an urgent need for continuing international intervention on sexual and reproductive health rights.
Poverty, inequality, gender bias, mistrust and global conflicts still prevent many from getting access to basic health needs. Honourable senators, every day 830 women still die from pregnancy or childbirth-related complications. Over 5 million children die annually from preventable causes. Another startling statistic is that more than 16 million adolescent girls become mothers every year, with the attendant negative sequelae on their educational, economic and personal health outcomes.
Canada has made a significant financial contribution to the global strategy for women, children and adolescent health, a World Health Organization-initiated roadmap to achieve the highest attainable standards of health care for all women, children and adolescents, and to transform the future and ensure that every newborn, mother and child not only survives but thrives.
Canada’s efforts are focused on the promotion of sexual and reproductive health and rights, on the reduction of infectious diseases through immunization, on improving nutrition for the poorest and most vulnerable in those countries where more than half of all maternal deaths occur, and for improving accountability by tracking our progress to make sure that our investments are making a difference.
Honourable senators, I hope you will join me in supporting these efforts to improve the health of vulnerable mothers, children and adolescents across the globe so that they too are given the basic human right to live a healthy and productive life. Thank you. Meegwetch.