Child Mortality Rate Declines Globally

This article can be found here.

September 9, 2009

At last, an article filled with hope and celebration during times of pessimism. Inside the International News section of the paper, sandwiched between an article on war and and article on corruption, is this declaration of triumph. Celia Dugger, as a writer for the New Tork Times, is probably not used to reporting on such encouraging milestones as this, but she provides adequate justice to its resonance. Armed and equipped with dozens of facts and numbers, she pounds out the recent records that were made concerning the lowered child mortality rate. "12.5 million" deaths to "8.8 million", "90 per 1,000" babies dying to "65 per 1,000", "10,000 less children dying per day" she writes, exultantly.

I believe most other journalists would take this opportunity to complain that these numbers are still overly-inflated, which they are, and then choose to focus on the regions where child mortality rates have actually gone up. Dugger writes a 3 sentence paragraph on how one of the most wealthy regions of Africa, South Africa, surprisingly showed an increase in this rate, along with Chad, Congo, and Kenya, and then moves on to describe "the most successful efforts to reduce child mortality". I like how Dugger respects the milestone and also incorporates awareness on those most affected by high child mortality rates, namely those of South Africa, and the common ailnesses that have led to these deaths, (i.e. pneumonia, diahrrea).

"Doris Hebuye, a thin, sociable woman, listened from a distance one morning as her daughter Fanny, a new mother, cradled her 10-day-old baby. A health worker counseled Fanny Kasipati, 18, on the finer points of breast-feeding, the danger signs of sickness and choices for birth control. As she sat outside their mud hut in the village of Tetheleya, Mrs. Hebuye’s eyes had a sad, faraway look as she described the deaths of two of her seven children — Gustus, at 3, and Margaret, at 1 —from causes she had never really understood. “Malawi is changing for the better,” she said. “In those days, people gave birth without advice. These days, women are assisted in many ways.”"