More evidence we are sliding quickly into 3rd world status

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100504/hl_afp/healthwomenchildrenworld_20100504085825

US low score on world motherhood rankings: charity
Tue May 4, 4:58 am ET

.WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States has scored poorly on a campaign group's list of the best countries in which to be a mother, managing only 28th place, and bettered by many smaller and poorer countries.

Norway topped the latest Save the Children "Mothers Index", followed by a string of other developed nations, while Afghanistan came in at the bottom of the table, below several African states.

But the US showing put it behind countries such as the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; and eastern and central European states such as Croatia and Slovenia.

Even debt-plagued Greece came in four places higher at 24.

One factor that dragged the US ranking down was its maternal mortality rate, which at one in 4,800 is one of the highest in the developed world, said the report.

"A woman in the Unites States is more than five times as likely as a woman in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece or Italy to die from pregnancy-related causes in her lifetime and her risk of maternal death is nearly 10-fold that of a woman in Ireland," the report said.

It also scored poorly on under-five mortality, its rate of eight per 1,000 births putting it on a par with Slovakia and Montenegro.

"At this rate, a child in the US is more than twice as likely as a child in Finland, Iceland, Sweden or Singapore to die before his or her fifth birthday," the report noted.

Only 61 percent of children were enrolled in preschool, which on this indicator made it the seventh-lowest country in the developed world, it said.

And it added: "The United States has the least generous maternity leave policy -- both in terms of duration and percent of wages paid -- of any wealthy nation."

Norway headed the list of developed countries at the top of the list of best places to be a mother, followed by Australia, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

At the bottom was Afghanistan, followed by Niger, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Sudan, Eritrea and Equatorial Guinea.

"While the situation in the United States needs to improve, mothers in the developing world are facing far greater risks to their own health and that of their children," said Save the Children's Mary Beth Powers.

"The shortage of skilled birth attendants and challenges in accessing birth control means that women in countries at the bottom of the list face the most pregnancies and the most risky birth situations, resulting in newborn and maternal deaths," she added.

Save the Children compiled the index after analyzing a range of factors affecting the health and well-being of women and children, including access to health care, education and economic opportunities.

Thus Norway came top because women there are paid well, access to contraception is easy and the country has one of the generous most maternity leave policies in the world.

Afghanistan however came last because of its high levels of infant mortality and the fact that it had the lowest female life expectancy and the worst rate of primary education for females in the world.

The report recommended more funding for women's and girls' education and better access to maternal and child health care, particularly in the developing world.

In the United States and other industrialised nations, it called on governments and communities to work together to improve education and health for disadvantaged mothers and children.
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The article says it all.

Sadly there will be some here on DU who disagree and display this kind of mentality toward those of us who believe we are quickly becoming a 3rd world country...

they'll be the same ones saying "no one could have anticipated..." when it finally dawns on them.

I agree. We're slip sliding away, as the song goes.

very consistently so.

Quick way to end an important conversation here on the new, dumbed down version of DU.

This is probably no different than living in some parts of Bangladesh:

http://cbs13.com/local/tent.city.brandi.2.952758.html

and we're getting there fast. The entire country has been strip mined for the benefit of a few wealthy man and it's gone on for over 30 years. Our infrastructure is crumbling, our factories looted, and our people are unable to meet their needs without facing crippling debt. Meanwhile, our civil liberties have been gutted in the name of keeping order, especially in keeping us sober so we can wring the last bit of misery out of our long slide into poverty.

Oh, we don't have the slums of Rio or Nairobi on the edge of the city or families who eke a living from picking over our landfills (it's illegal here or there are times in my life I'd have gladly done that), but we push our real slums out to migrant labor camps and campgrounds where marginal workers live in camper shells on cinder blocks, if they're lucky. If they're unlucky, it's the street or a shelter bed, night after night.

If people in this country had any clue how badly they're being treated compared to people in all the other industrialized countries in the world, they'd not only take to the streets, they'd murder anybody in a three piece suit, just on general principles.

If the Pox News narcotized sleeping giant doesn't wake up soon, we're finished.

"A woman in the Unites States is more than five times as likely as a woman in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece or Italy to die from pregnancy-related causes in her lifetime and her risk of maternal death is nearly 10-fold that of a woman in Ireland," the report said.

not really sure if americans 'losing' a fantasy status in the first place is really going to convince anyone of anything.

whats the hannah arendt quote "the third world is not a reality, it is an ideology?"

a huge problem with american conservatives and right wingers is exceptionalism (their first fantasy) which relies on a 'we arent them' attitude. if that reality is getting peeled away now and americans have to face reality, then either people will rebel against their percieved loss (blame government) or be provoked to understand what has been happenening (deep social and capital critique)

Our health care outcomes are mediocre, rated behind dozens of other countries. Same with our students' achievements and knowledge, where we fall further behind each year. Now we see that our ability to properly raise children is also way behind the rest of the developed world. We no longer make or do anything productive here, but rather just buy things from China and shuffle money around while skimming off profits. (Our biggest exports to China are soybeans and recyclable trash. Big whoop.)

The fact is, our corporations have "we the people" and our government in a stranglehold. Unless we can shake this off, we will continue our inexorable downward slide into third-world status. But of course we can't shake it off, because our conservatives won't let us. And thus "America" dies.

:-(

events are coming to a boil. the 2010 and 2012 elections will be huge as too which way the country goes. the government as usual is behind and the money policy cannot hold up as is.

http://www.speedtest.net/global.php#0

World internet speed averages.

Hungary and Portugal are beating us...sad. It's only a matter of time before we become like Haiti or Sudan.