On Monday, Kenyans who acknowledge Mother's Day will mark the occasion in a country ranked as one of the worst places on earth to be born.
According to a study by the Economist Intelligent Unit , a sister company of The Economist, Kenya is one of the three worst countries to be born in scoring 4.91 out of 10 and coming second only to Nigeria which scored 4.74 while the Ukraine placed at third worst on the EUI's Quality-Of-Life-Index.
The Quality- Of- Life- Index measures whether a country can provide the healthiest, safest and happiest environment in the coming years.
The index uses factors such as material well being, security, quality of life for families and communities, and happiness of a country's citizens to determine the quality of life it provides.
The list of the worst places to be born on the index is crowded by developing countries while Western countries dominate the top of the list with Switzerland placed at the top of the best places in the world to be born.
The results of the EUI study is not suprising as other reports have continually shown that the quality of life for mothers and babies in most developing countries is in dire straits. One million babies die the day they are born each a year and according to report, "Surviving The First Year" by the organisation Save the Children, the 14 countries with the highest child mortality rates are all in Africa.
The aid organisation also ranked Kenya as one of the worst places for mothers, at 156, in its annual report. According to the study one in 55 mothers will die during child birth. This includes May 12 the day the world set aside to celebrate motherhood. Many more may leave clinics childless as 14,700 babies in Kenya die the same day they are born.
According to a recent study on Sexual and Reproductive Health in Kenya by the Human Rights Commission factors such as the unavailability of maternal health services including - including antenatal care, delivery care, postpartum care and abortion care. At all levels of health care; the high cost of maternal health care and the poor quality of health services that are affordable to poor women all conspire to make giving birth a deadly endeavour for most women in the country.
