The Green Paper themed ‘A framework for poverty reduction and for social inclusion’ deals also with children but not with unborn children. It should, for many reasons. International public health experts, writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine in October 2013, urged the World Bank to define life expectancy, its key poverty indicator, as starting at the time of conception and not at the time of birth if millions of lives are to be saved from injury or death.
They said that definitional oversight, in which the life of the child is inadvertently cut into two, “inside” and “outside” the womb, covers up risks to the foetus and is particularly unfair to children born in areas increasingly at risk to disasters and already disadvantaged by poverty, hunger and social deprivation. This segmented definition, said the authors, should be replaced by a new inclusive way of thinking about “the unborn child”.
The World Health Organisation has estimated that there are 200 million plus conceptions globally each year, mostly among disadvantaged groups in disadvantaged areas.
The first nine months of life are vulnerable to risks, not just medical but employment, agricultural, security, energy and climate risks. Lead author, Bruce Currey, of the Institute of Social and Preventative Medicine, University of Geneva, said: “Social and environmental risks and hazards affecting mother and baby during pregnancy may reduce the resilience of the child in the next stages of life’s journey.” He continued: “Until now, the nine months between conception and birth are being ignored in the UN disaster and climate change discourse.”
The 4,000 unborn children who are normally in their mothers’ wombs every year in the Maltese islands should be protected too
In an article titled Children ‘common concern’ of mankind (February 4, 2011), the Malta Unborn Child Movement reported that research had shown that babies in the womb were being exposed to cocktails of toxic chemicals and that their blood was swimming with dangerous compounds found in everyday household cleaners, perfumes and even pans and furniture. It warned that this was affecting the climate for the unborn child in the womb.
The Scotsman had reported not so long before that at least 600 Scottish babies a year were judged to be at risk of abuse before they were even born and that official figures revealed that, in 2007, 331 unborn babies were placed on the official child protection register, many of them because of their mother’s drink or drug problem.
It is known that drugs, alcohol and tobacco adversely affect the development of the unborn child at each month of pregnancy. There are indications that an undisclosed number of unborn children in Malta and Gozo are suffering physical and psychological harm because of the consumption of drugs, alcohol and tobacco by their parents, in marriage and outside of it, during, or before, pregnancy. Unfortunately, official local statistics still do not show these facts in connection with the consumption of such substances.
There are fears, also, that would-be mothers and pregnant women are being exposed to chemical and toxic substances in their own families and on the places of work with great harm to mothers, fathers and their unborn children.
The JRSM health experts added that “risks to the unborn infant have a potentially massive global impact. The consequent mortality and disability-adjusted life year burden resulting from mishaps tothe estimated 200 million plus pregnancies each year is so large that it cannot be comprehended”.
Dr Currey said: “To prevent this global toll and to begin to reduce the reality of risks to the unborn infant, the medical, health and midwifery professions must together advocate concerted action to fill the nine-month gap - ignored by so many organisations and policymakers.”
He added: “This challenges us to accept a very broad concept of integrated health, drawing from expertise far outside the traditional medical specialties. On the one hand, medicine’s wider role must reach out to embrace economists, engineers and climatologists.
“On the other hand, economists, engineers and climatologists have to be persuaded by gynaecologists and obstetricians to see risk reduction for the unborn child and, thus, improved pregnancy outcomes as measurable performance indicators of their endeavours.”
MUCM suggests that the Green Paper on poverty and social exclusion, the national strategy and policy for children and the national health systems strategy, which are being compiled at present, should take note of the JRSM’s recomendations. They should make robust provisions for the protection and sustainable development of the 4,000 unborn children who are normally in their mothers’ wombs every year in the Maltese islands.
Similary, all the new members of the European Parliament should concern themselves with the health and well-being of all unborn childen in the EU.
Tony Mifsud is coordinator of the Malta Unborn Child Movement.