child mortality

i believe it shouldn’t end at the beginning ... but it does.

Every day, 22,000 children die, most from entirely preventable causes. It’s hard to know which is more shocking: that so many lives are lost each day, or that their deaths can be stopped.

 Globally, 43 per cent of deaths of children under five are attributed to five diseases:

• Pneumonia
• Diarrhoea
• Malaria
• HIV/AIDS
• Measles.

In Australia, these diseases account for just two per cent of deaths of children under five. 

Simple things that we take for granted in Australia, such as literacy education, training in childcare, pre-natal care and the presence of skilled birth attendants, would see the number of child deaths in developing countries plummet.

And progress has been made. In 1990, 12.5 million children died before their fifth birthday; by 2009 this number had fallen to 8.1 million. This means more than 12,000 fewer children die each day.

But Compassion believes this number is still too high. Parents in the developing world are still burying their children from ailments as common as diarrhoea—illnesses we can treat with over-the-counter drugs.

The injustice of child mortality screams for action. It’s too significant an issue to not cover in prayer. Together, let’s lift up these babies and their mums to the Lord and “devote ourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful” (Colossians 4:2).

Though the statistics can seem overwhelming, each and every one of us can impact the life of a mother and child through Compassion’s Child Survival Program. For families assisted by Compassion, the death of a child isn’t a statistic but a heart-breaking reality.

 It shouldn’t end at the beginning. Help see that it doesn’t by joining the fight for child survival.