Norway ranked best country to have children

Norway is the place to be for mothers and babies according to this year’s Save the Children annual report.

The 11th Save the Children Mother’s Index analysed a number of factors which contribute to the health and well-being of mothers and their children, including education, economic opportunities and access to health care. The study found that Norwegian women are well paid, have a generous government-mandated maternity leave and good access to birth control.

Iceland came in third; but the USA came in at 28th place, behind Croatia, Latvia and Estonia, reports USA Today. The United States’ ranking was greatly influenced by high rates of infant mortality and maternal mortality, in addition to low levels of pre-school enrolment and one of the world’s worst maternity-leave policies in terms of pay and duration.

“A woman in the Unites States is more than five times as likely as a woman in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece or Italy to die from pregnancy-related causes in her lifetime and her risk of maternal death is nearly 10-fold that of a woman in Ireland,” stated the report. “At this rate, a child in the US is more than twice as likely as a child in Finland, Iceland, Sweden or Singapore to die before his or her fifth birthday.”

Norway topped the list just ahead of Australia and Iceland. Fellow Nordics Sweden, Denmark and Finland followed immediately after, with New Zealand, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany rounding out the top ten.

At the foot of the table, war-torn Afghanistan was ranked bottom. Yemen was the only other non-African country in the lowest positions.