Working to save children's lives
by Carole Kenner, DNS, RNC, FAAN

Each year, 10.5 million children younger than 6 die worldwide. That's about 29,000 children every single day.

A Child Survival Symposium held recently in New York City helped raise awareness about this critical problem. Norway, UNICEF, The Lancet and leaders from Jordan, Afghanistan and other countries teamed up to convene the event, which focused on reducing child mortality by two-thirds by 2015 — a target also known as the fourth Millennium Development Goal.

In my role as dean of the University of Oklahoma College of Nursing and president of the Council of International Neonatal Nurses, I was pleased to be one of 60 people invited to participate in the symposium because Oklahoma is poised to assume a leadership role in this battle for the survival of children, as the majority of deaths that occur every year among children are preventable.

Prevention begins with providing prenatal and neonatal care for mothers and babies. At the OU College of Nursing, our students and faculty work with other departments and colleges at OU Health Sciences Center to provide the basic care mothers need to help increase child survival.

A healthy start in life is important to every newborn baby. The first 28 days, the neonatal period, is critical. During this time, fundamental health and feeding practices are established as well as developmental progression. It is also during this time that a child is at highest risk for developing serious complications or even dying.

Our associations with other universities across the United States have helped us to provide advanced training for nurses and expand our nursing program. In the past year, we have established a neonatal nurse practitioner program that will help ease a critical shortage in this area.

The goal of the Child Survival Symposium was to assess the progress being made to reduce child deaths. Assessments show only seven countries are on track to meet the fourth Millennium Development Goal.

Child deaths are attributed to diseases such as HIV and malaria. However, pneumonia also was found to be a disease responsible for millions of deaths each year among children. Malnutrition is another preventable cause of death among the world's children.

The College of Nursing, COINN and others are actively involved in the Partnership in Safe Motherhood and Newborn Health through the World Health Organization Center in Oklahoma.

The world cannot afford to continue to lose one of its most valuable resources — its children. As Americans and Oklahomans, we need to continue to commit the resources needed to lower child mortality in the United States and throughout the world.

Oklahomans understand teamwork and it's going to take a team effort to solve this problem. We must find ways to implement strategies that will save the lives of children. It is a battle for life, and the winners will be this planet's youngest inhabitants — almost 4 million children saved from preventable deaths if we can meet that fourth Millennium Development Goal.

Kenner is dean of the University of Oklahoma College of Nursing.