Today is Mother’s Day. It has been since 1922 thanks to the fact that on April 13 of that year the founding director of the Excelsior newspaper, Rafael Alducin Bedoya, proposed that on May 10 of each year Mexican mothers be celebrated.
Immediately, his proposal received the support of the writer and politician José Vasconcelos, who was then President Álvaro Obregón’s Secretary of Public Education. Alducin perhaps never imagined how deeply rooted Mother’s Day would become over the years in our country because he died two years later, on April 30, 1924, at the age of 35, when he fell from a horse that I rode in the Bosque de Chapultepec.
Due to the above, today we must not only celebrate the mothers but also the centenary of the beginning of the commemoration and remember the promoter of the celebration.
During these 100 years, the situation of Mexican mothers has changed a lot.
Maternal mortality decreased. From an estimated rate of 1,080 deaths per 100,000 births in 1922, it fell to 33 per 100,000 in April of this year, which represents a decrease of 97 percent.
However, the rate of 33 places Mexico in 77th place out of 186 countries, which means that 76 have lower rates and that there is still a long way to go to reach a rate of 10 or less, as is the case of 43 countries.
Covid caused an increase in the maternal mortality rate. From 31.1 per 100,000 births in 2019 to 53.1 during the most critical period of the pandemic. Today, the rate tends to get closer each month to what it was in 2019.
There is a fact that has to do with the happiness of mothers: the infant mortality rate, which measures the number of babies who die during their first year of life for every 1,000 births.
In 1922 the rate was 223.1, which means that almost 25% of children born that year died before their first birthday. It is currently 11.86. In a comparison of 227 nations and territories, 106 register lower rates than the Mexican. Here, too, there is a long way to go to reach a rate of 5.0 or less, which is what is reported in 51 of the entities included in the list.
Regarding the mortality rate of children under 5 years of age per 1,000 births, Mexico’s is 14.2 and ranks 85th out of a list of 192 countries.
Finally, as regards the number of children that a woman has during her fertile life, measured by the total fertility rate (TFR), in 1930 it was 6. Later, pronatalist government policies meant that in 1968 the TFR reached its level historical maximum when reaching 7.1. Fortunately, the birth control campaigns that began in the late 1970s were successful. It is estimated that this year the TFR will be 2.01 and that in 2030 it will drop to 1.88.
Today, 100 years after the first Mother’s Day was celebrated, Mexican moms are in a much better situation than their grandmothers and great-grandmothers experienced then. However, there is still a long way to go before its reality is similar to what exists in other countries whose rulers did things better, since 1922 or later, than the proto-priistas, priistas, panistas and morenistas who have governed Mexico.
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Opinionist, columnist, lecturer, media trainer, 35 years of experience in the media, microentrepreneur.