By JOKE SILVA & SHABARA AZMI
No matter where she is from, a mother’s happiness will depend on her child’s wellbeing.  This similarity cuts through all other differences that may exist between mothers living on opposite sides of the world.

It means a mother with a healthy child can empathise with another mother’s pain at watching her child suffering from an illness. It means that a mother laying out a plate of food for her child each day will understand another mother’s heartache at being unable to feed her child the nutritious foods he needs to grow to his full potential.

Save the Children’s new State of the World’s Mother’s Report ranks countries by those which are the best and those which are the toughest for being a mother around the world. In doing so, it shows that, behind the universal nature of motherhood, every mother’s experience is unique.

The ranking marks mothers’ access to health care, their child’s access to a nutritious diet and their chances of fulfilling their potential depending on where they live. It paints a picture of a pregnant mother in Norway- the best place to be a mother in the world – who can rest assured that she is almost guaranteed to have her baby’s birth attended by a skilled health worker.

On the other end of the spectrum, a pregnant mother in Niger will be most likely to give birth to her newborn baby alone, or without skilled assistance.

Another guarantee about mothers worldwide is that they will all recognise and have their own relationship with the practice of breastfeeding. The desire to bond, and to protect your child’s wellbeingnormally translates into wanting to nourish and provide for your newborn; breastfeeding is often the earliest manifestation of that desire.

The benefits are deeper than emotional bonding too. Save the Children’s report notes that, if practised exclusively for six months and regularly thereafter, breastfeeding could prevent one million child deaths per year.

A mother’s milk provides a child with the essential nutrients it needs and antibodies that can protect it against childhood diseases. It is a globally recognised practice which needs to be practiced more universally.

Sadly, many children, however, are not receiving the sustenance they need in their vital first hours of life, or even before, when in the womb.  In Somalia, more than nine out of ten mothers do not exclusively breastfeed for the first six months, often supplementing their child’s diet with camel’s milk, tea or water.

In Malawi, meanwhile, 95% of mothers are putting their babies to the breast within an hour after birth; over two thirds are still being exclusively breastfed six months later.