The Best Place in the World to Be a Mother
Mother and child in Portugal
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Parents and caregivers, who reside in Portugal, should be relieved to know they are living in one of the world’s safest places for children. According to statistics, Portugal is one of the best places to be a mother. It is so safe that it has been proclaimed much safer than the United States, Switzerland and Canada. Norway, which has long been the leader on childhood safety, maternity leave and gender equality was not able to beat out Portugal for the top spot.
According to the Save the Children’s 13th State of the World’s Mothers Report, Portugal is number 15 on the list of 165 countries. Even Afghanistan is no longer considered the worse country to be a mother and raise children; Niger now holds that honor.
The “Best and Worst Places to Be a Mom” ranks 165 countries all over the world. In addition to looking at the economic statuses of the mothers, education, health, living conditions and child welfare are all taken into consideration as well.
In addition to being one of the best places to raise a family, Portugal also ranks very high among the countries that have a high rate of birth control use. 83 % of the women use some kind of birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies. According to The Portugal News by Save the Children, the women of China and the United Kingdom have the highest rate of contraceptive use. “Portugal performs above the developed world average on all indicators apart from the measures of economic status… Portugal could provide better maternity leave benefits.”
While “working mothers are entitled only to 120 to 150 days of leave, although at 80% to 100% pay, which is more generous than many other countries. Compare this though to policies in Denmark and Sweden, where mothers can take a year or more at 80-100 percent. Women also earn only 60 cents to the male dollar, which is lower than most developed countries (26 of the 43 other developed countries perform better than Portugal on this indicator).” The United Nations have also found that women who have children in Portugal live longer. There is a lower risk of mortality from childbirth; 1 death every 7,600 births. Even Norway had a higher percentage of fatalities with 1 death out of 9,800. Contributing to the decrease in infant mortality are the breastfeeding policies in Portugal. According to research conducted by Save the Children, if more countries implemented more polices that provide additional support to mothers to increase breastfeeding awareness and acceptance, more than 1 million additional children could be saved each year. The breastfeeding statistics in Portugal show that breastfeeding is best. “90 % of babies start off being breastfed and at least 52% are breastfed for at least 3 months.” This has caused a major decrease in the infant mortality rate. In 2011, Portugal’s infant mortality rate for babies 1 and under was only 2.5 %, which when compared to 2009 when the mortality rate was a much higher 3.6%.
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Published in: Portuguese Life