Night and Day

All thanks to poverty.

"Deaths are heavily weighted to the poorest and most isolated in each country, which means that many politicians remain largely ignorant of the scale of the tragedy."

Children don't all simply just die of hunger. As if death was ever that easy.

Poor living conditions are inevitable part of poverty. Sanitation and health care are all problems that contribute to the high mortality rate in the poorest countries like Malawi and Somalia. In addition, there are all these diseases, like AIDs, TB and Malaria, that are spreading around. Children are more susceptible to dying from these diseases as they are malnourished to being with.

Many parents are forced to sell their older children in order to feed their younger children, some simply feed their stronger children and leave the weaker ones to die. They can't afford to feed all their children, there's just not enough food to go around.

Most disturbing is that women are dying while in child birth. Like they just bleed to death from a tear in the cervix. You would think that with all these advance medical treatment these days, a tear in the cervix can be easily fixed.

But in poor countries, there's either insufficient doctors to go around or that the nurses and doctors do not have sufficient skills and resources to help the patients. OR, the people are so poor and there are so few health care services available that the people living in poverty simply can't afford to see a doctor at all.

So, like women in Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, they just give birth at home with little help. And without any painkillers whatsoever. I can't imagine. Giving birth is painful and traumatic enough, giving birth without any help?! What happens when there are birth complications? It's so long, farewell, adieu say goodbye to you or your baby. In many cases, it's both.

Even if there's a way to get to the hospital, the long journey (usually hours) and terrible road conditions on the way to the hospital will prob kill the woman first. Even if she does survive the journey, dirty water and mediocre-ly skilled nurses will still kill her while in the hospital. It's so morbidly ironic, Death in Birth.

This is not a problem that is uncontrollable. Just that the government of these poor countries typically lack the political willingness (and willingness to part with the $) to see to the improvement of the education of the children and the living conditions of their people.

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Walt, V. (2008, Sept 18). Death in Birth. Retrieved October 11, 2008, from TIME Web site: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1842278,00.html

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