maternal & child health

1) The main reasons for maternal and child mortality in developing countries:
For child mortality:
The diseases (pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, measles and HIV)
Malnutrition
accident
As I see, the root cause is poverty and low educational level.
For maternal mortality:
Pregnancy and childbirth (severe bleeding, infections, unsafe abortion, hypertensive disorders ,obstructed labour and HIV)
Pregnancy-related illness after childbirth (fever, anaemia, fistula, incontinence, infertility and depression)
Some other factors related: Adolescent mother, Poor and less educated, lack of antenatal care visits and skilled care

Besides the poverty and low educational level, there is gender inequality which is also a root cause.

2) How people can try to reduce maternal and child mortality:

Reducing child mortality:
Investing in strong health systems, providing high-impact health and nutrition interventions: quality care during pregnancy; safe delivery by a skilled birth attendant; and strong neonatal care: immediate attention to breathing and warmth, hygienic cord and skin care, early initiation of exclusive breastfeeding, vaccines, antibiotics, micronutrient supplementation.
Improving family care practices: access to solid knowledge: helping families to learn essential skills and basic health knowledge, particularly in the care of newborns. This includes best practices in breastfeeding and complementary feeding, hygiene and safe faeces disposal; support and basic supplies: supporting better parenting, the care of mothers, infant feeding, care-seeking practices among families and communities in favour of disease prevention, and optimal management of childhood illness.
Increasing access to improved water and sanitation: develop systems to control water-borne diseases like Guinea worm and cholera that undermine child survival and development; reduce productivity and raise health-care costs; Struggle to find water and hygiene resources also primarily increase burdens on girls and women; strengthen policies and budgets and support technical capacities in programmes for hygiene promotion, sanitation, cost-effective water supply options and water quality, particularly for poor rural and urban families.

Reducing maternal mortality:
Enhancing the skills of health professionals to improve the quality and availability of services: support of scaling up of a training model for preventing maternal mortality with government health workers; preparing general practitioners to provide quality emergency obstetric care in rural areas; strengthening public sector delivery of reproductive health services; developing system to improve skilled attendance at birth in rural indigenous areas and generate support for midwifery training systems; increasing the availability and improving the quality of legal abortion services.

Promoting informed advocacy on critical issues related to maternal mortality to ensure that policymakers have the evidence and motivation to successfully address the problem;

Supporting research on leading causes of maternal mortality, covering topics such as political commitment, budget analysis and computer modeling of real-life scenarios.

Supporting education: not only to strengthen medical school curricula and teaching related to reproductive health and maternal mortality, but also to improve the level of education, especially let more girls enter the school.


3) Similarities in reducing maternal and child mortality:
The basic cause of maternal and child mortality is poverty and low level of education, so the interventions and policies have inevitability to some extent. Main is investing in strong health systems, supporting education, improving family care practices, increasing access to improved water and sanitation.


Reference:
Reducing maternal mortality http://www.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7Bb0386ce3-8b29-4162-8098-e466fb856794%7D/MATERNALMORTALITY-INFO.PDF
WHO 2008. 10 Facts on child health.
WHO 2008. 10 Facts on maternal health.
WHO 2008. What are the key health dangers for children?
UNICEF. Goal: Reduce child mortality. http://www.unicef.org/mdg/childmortality.html
http://www.globalhealthtv.com/news/the_effort_to_reduce_maternal_mortality/