Vivian Guetler, W.Va. Results Advocate, Morgantown
The best Mother’s Day gift was to spend the day celebrating with your child as he or she graduate from college. It was graduation day in Morgantown, and as mothers were spending Mother’s Day celebrating their children’s graduation, some mothers around the world were denied the opportunity to celebrate their children graduating due to the death of their child before reaching age 5.
According to the World Health Organization, in 2016, 5.6 million children under the age of 5 died from treatable and preventable causes. Globally, the child mortality rate declined from 12.7 million in 1990 to 5.6 million in 2016. This shows that there is hope but still a devastating statistic.
The good news is that U.S. leadership through the Reach Every Mother and Child Act of 2017 (S. 1730 and H.R. 4022) is at the forefront of achieving the goal to end preventable child and maternal deaths globally.
Thanks to Sen. Shelley Capito for co-sponsoring the Reach Act. We still need the rest of our state’s congressional delegation to co-sponsor the Reach Act in order to put an end to the daily unnecessary deaths of children and mothers globally.
What is the best Mother’s Day gift if not being able to celebrate it with your child? Let’s make sure that every mother, whether from West Virginia or around the world, will get to celebrate with her children in the future.