Mother & Child Foundation, McCarrison Soc. call for a World Charter for Mothers.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/22/un-women-rights-agency

The child is represented by UNICEF, Save the Children Fund, Institutes of Child Health and the many other organizations and fund raising activities. "There is no voice for the mother"  Dr. Mark Belsey, then Director of Maternal and Child Health at WHO, Geneva, at the Inaugural Conference that started the Mother and Child Foundation and the McCarrison Society

 

The Health of the Nation Depends on the Mother and Child, Royal Society of Medicine, London [November 1993]

The world health evidence. The mother is the key to the next generation. Belsey M. Nutr Health. 1993;9(2):75-80.

a message repeated at

 

Maternal Nutrition as the Key to the Health and Ability of the Child, Royal Society of Medicine, London [2nd December 1999]

 

and

 

Generating Healthy Brains - Nutrients and Hormones in Development: mental health through coordinated care of life's beginnings, The Innholders Hall, 30 College Street, Dowgate Hill, London [17th January 2006]

 

It is essential now that the supreme importance of the maternal health and nutritin is recognised both for her health and for the health and intelligence of her child.

 

The rise in brain disorders with mental ill health overtaking all other burdens of ill lhealth is the greatest threat to health and social stability yet.

 

Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, then Director General of WHO opening the XVIII European Congress of Perinatal Medicine, Oslo, 2002[i] said this:. 

 

In most countries in Europe, women can receive the news of a pregnancy confident that it will be a period of attention, support, and assistance. But for pregnancies in our world, the reality is very different. “A young women in Ethiopia, for example, goes into the reproductive phase of her life with a one-in-ten chance that she will die as a result of pregnancy or delivery. That is not only shocking - it is totally unacceptable.”

 

It is vital now to  create a sharper focus on the role of the mother in national health plans and policies. Indeed the need for a global initiative at the  UN has never been greater.