MP says make every day Mother’s Day

Date article online: 15/03/2007

Jim Dobbin MP for Heywood and Middleton joined international supermodel Liya Kebede on Tuesday 13 March to back a six point plan of action to stop the death toll of women and children in developing countries. 

He signed up to the campaign by the World Health Organisation and Commonwealth Secretariat calling on Governments worldwide to take action to "Make Every Day Mother’s Day." 

The campaign is being launched with a two day international conference at the House of Commons in the run-up to Mother’s Day on 18 March.  Mr Dobbin and Ms Kebede signed a giant Mother’s Day card, and will be sending them out to organisations in Heywood and Middleton. 

The "Make Every Day Mother’s Day" campaign calls for: 

• Skilled care for all women during pregnancy, childbirth and in the postnatal period.
• Community involvement in health care.
• Global networks to improve infant and maternal mortality.
• Better infrastructure for health services – in buildings, transport staff.
• Action to promote safe pregnancies and safer motherhood.
• Governments to take the lead in fighting the high death rates among new mothers and their babies. 

Worldwide a woman dies every minute from easily preventable complications of pregnancy, and each year 4,000,000 babies die in the 28 days of life. The international community agreed targets to cut infant and maternal mortality. However, in some countries the situation has got worse. 

Jim Dobbin said: "'Make Every Day Mothers Day' aims to cut the tragic and needless loss of life among women and their newborn babies. This call to action will make sure that families around the world get to celebrate many more Mothers’ Days in the years to come."