Topic: Reducing Infant Mortality
Country: Greece
Delegate Name: Jalyn Blakey
School: Roeper School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Greece position papers GLIMUN 2015 committees
Worldwide infant mortality is an issue that needs to be acted upon greatly. The Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) have made helped make significant progress in this area. Health organizations, doctors and governments have been working together to make a change in these rates domestically and abroad.
Even though Greece does not have a substantially high infant mortality rate (4.78 deaths/1,000 live births), significantly lower than the Sustainable Development Goal 2020 target of 25 deaths/1,000 live births. While Greece can still can lower these national rates, we need to focus on countries that have significantly higher infant mortality rates. We believe that we should act in these areas by expanding maternal health programs through NGO’s like Planned Parenthood, governmental, WHO affiliates, and many more. These and other organizations would definitely benefit expecting mothers and their children. Assuring that organizations have the resources they need in their communities should be top priority. This includes healthcare facilities, or any type of facility suitable to help women, and children get the help, resources, and education they need.
Educating mothers and other women about risks during pregnancy and early childhood, and how to prevent these risks is certainly taking a step in the right direction. Educating women of the importance of their health and their child during and after pregnancy is critical. Mothers should be alerted for what could harm them or the child. Nutrition plays a significant role during and after pregnancy. A key factor is that community health support should make sure that the mother is getting what she needs for herself and the newborn. After pregnancy, knowing the precedence that should support breastfeeding the child, particularly in developing nations, where clean water is widely unavailable. Making sure that mother and child are getting all the possible nutrients is crucial for them during the specific time line in early life. The length for breastfeeding may vary from developed to the developing world. Some sources like (AAP) American Academy of Pediatrics say 12 months; but as the World Health Organization (WHO), we recommended 2 years or more. We have to continue to educate women about how to keep themselves and their babies healthy, growing, and alert.
No community in the world should be without these critical resources. In the year 2015, Greece strongly believes we have the power to control what we can put in our communities. Healthcare providers, doctors, and organizations as one can all contribute to this issue by making sure we are taking care of our people as a whole. Getting medical specialists and midwives into poorer urban and rural areas is major, and should establish that women and children in those less fortunate areas need this care. This aid could drastically improve infant and maternal health in their communities.
We all know that infant mortality rates can range from low to very high all over the world. This variation may be for an innumerable number of reasons, but many are self-explanatory. For example Africa’s infant mortality rates are among the world’s highest, but many causes of mortality can be prevented. The global community needs to just step in, get the spotlight on healthcare, resources and simple education for the women in Africa. UNICEF has done a grand job of raising money to assist children, but Greece deeply believes that the WHO and the global health community can do an even better job to get those rates down. The solution Greece proposes simply boils down to if we educate and come together everything else will fall into place we could work wonders. It’s all about working together to come up with answers to give all women and children the same opportunity, to live safer, healthier, easier, and more pleasant lives.
