World Health Day 2025: Healthy beginnings mean hopeful futures

Today is World Health Day. It marks the beginning of a yearlong campaign by the World Health Organization to support mothers and their babies.
 
The maternal and newborn health campaign – called Healthy Beginnings, Hopeful Futures – recognizes that the health of mothers and babies is the foundation of healthy families and communities, helping to ensure hopeful futures for humanity.
 
Based on currently published estimates, the WHO says, close to 300,000 women lose their lives due to pregnancy or childbirth each year, while more than two million babies die in their first month of life and another two million are stillborn.
 
That amounts to roughly one preventable death every seven seconds!
 
“Women and families everywhere need high quality care that supports them physically and emotionally, before, during and after birth,” the WHO says.
 
More information on the WHO’s campaign is found here: https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-health-day/2025
 
World Health Day is celebrated each year on April 7, marking the establishment of the World Health Organization by the United Nations on April 7, 1948.