Protecting Children's Health
Maternal Health: A Child's Best Start in Life
UNICEF provides healthcare to young children and their mothers to make sure that every child gets a healthy start in life.
Women who are unhealthy and malnourished during pregnancy, or weakened by too frequent pregnancies, also imperil the health of their children.
In Afghanistan, where women face a 1 in 8 lifetime risk of dying from pregnancy complications, UNICEF supports midwife training and community education groups to reduce the numbers of tragic untimely deaths. In Rwanda, UNICEF supports Mother-and-Child Week twice a year to locate pregnant women and provide them with prenatal health interventions. In Sierra Leone, UNICEF has helped the government introduce free health care for pregnant women.
Lifesaving Child Immunization and Vaccination
UNICEF is a global leader in child immunization. Today we provide vaccine to 40 percent of the world's children and help save two million lives a year.
When war or natural disaster strikes, we do whatever it takes to get children immunized. We help broker ceasefires so that we can enter a war-torn region and provide vaccination for its children. After a disaster, we go door-to-door in the remotest areas to distribute lifesaving vaccines.
Through campaigns like The Eliminate Project, which aims to protect every woman of child-bearing age against maternal and neonatal tetanus by 2015, UNICEF is forging a path for improved holistic medical services for the world’s most marginalized communities.
Malaria Prevention
Every 30 seconds a child dies of malaria. Nearly 90 percent of those deaths occur in Africa among children under the age of 5. That makes malaria the leading child-killer in Africa.
UNICEF is the world's largest provider of insecticide-treated mosquito nets, which help protect families from malaria. Increased availability of bed nets and scaled-up global funding for malaria programs are helping reduce the malaria burden in many countries.
We are determined to stop the needless deaths of children from preventable disease. And we believe that all children deserve the healthiest possible start in life. Their future—and ours—depends on it.
Related Children's Health Links
September 1, 2010
UNICEF’s Next Generation announces Project Ethiopia to fund neonatal health
Less than 2 years after its founding, UNICEF’s Next Generation, a group for young professionals who are passionate about UNICEF’s work, has raised $500,000 to support UNICEF’s lifesaving programs around the globe and is launching its third program-specific fundraising goal to help mothers and babies in Ethiopia.
August 30, 2010
Combination treatment reduces diarrheal deaths in India
UNICEF and IKEA are partnering to promote a new treatment for children with diarrhea, saving thousands of lives in India. Loss of essential nutrients from diarrhea leaves children vulnerable to attacks of pneumonia, malaria and other deadly diseases, but 88% of global deaths from diarrhea are entirely preventable.
August 10, 2010
Registering child births in Peru's remotest regions
UNICEF is working with regional governments in Peru to establish registration centers and train civil officers to register child births in the remotest parts of the Amazonian region. Lack of birth registration among indigenous populations results in social exclusion of children, denying them access to education and health services.
