inequality from before birth

All people during some stages of life require care, and effectively accessing it is a basic right. However, in countries with inequality gaps as large as Mexico, millions of boys, girls, people with disabilities or older adults have limited access to this care.

Social, racial, geographic, economic or gender inequality can combine so that a boy born in the Nápoles neighborhood in Mexico City has access to more and better care than a girl born on the coast of Guerrero.

According to the Report on Poverty and Child Care, prepared by CONEVAL, it is observed that in all spectrums of care -food, health, hygiene and education- the pre-existing vulnerabilities in rural, poor households or those that do not have access to security reach the minors who are born and grow up in them.

This situation also reflects the importance of creating a comprehensive care system, where through public policy it is guaranteed that all minors can access timely and quality care, particularly in the first years of life.

feeding

The conditions of access to postnatal medical services, medicines and quality food mean that, from birth, boys and girls already face inequality.

Breast milk, which is considered by the WHO as the food par excellence during the first months of life due to its contribution of nutrients, made up the diet of 57% of the children in the group of better-off families, the rest ate milk breast milk combined with formula.

But in the most vulnerable households, formula was the only food for 16% of the children, which is explained by the fact that many of the mothers in this group faced illnesses after childbirth or did not even know they had breast milk or how to supply it.

In the following years of life, feeding gaps persist. For example, while 8 out of 10 children from the better-off households considered in the study report regular consumption of fruit and meat, close to half of the children in the most vulnerable group of families do not include these foods in their diet. daily, but consumes them in a special way.

Health

The fact that women and pregnant people from the group of families with the most deprivations have less access to public and private health institutions affects prenatal and postnatal care and the health of minors born.

One of the peculiarities found in the study was that in the most vulnerable group of families there is still a significant preference for domestic services such as midwives or relatives who help in childbirth. And 3 out of 10 households declared that they had not received information on the specific care that newborns require.

Another relevant fact is that in 16% of the most vulnerable households the birth was registered with risk of malnutrition, while in the group of families with better conditions this proportion is reduced to 11 percent.

In the better-off group, 9 out of 10 boys and girls have their full vaccination schedule. In the most vulnerable families, only 6 out of 10.

The families with the most deprivations also report that in their communities there are no specialists, or second or third level hospital units, and the availability of medicines is also limited.

Education and stimulation

If the gaps in terms of food and health are already pronounced between the children of some homes and those of others, in the area of ​​education and early stimulation they are greater.

It is not only about enrolling and taking minors to school, but also about recreational dynamics within the home and exposing children to situations that help them transition successfully to the next stages of their lives.

In this sense, the document showed that 40% of the households in the most privileged group of families had access to information on child development, while for the most vulnerable households only 24% were informed.

14 out of 100 children from the better-off households have toys or entertainment items and 39 out of 100 have educational books, stories or comics. For the most deprived group, only 8 out of 100 have toys and only 12 out of 100 have printed materials.

Care, at the center of everything

When we talk about how inequalities are systematically perpetuated, we are referring to this: from birth, many boys and girls face significant obstacles to having basic rights.

In the families with the greatest deprivations, common situations were found, such as the parents of the newborns not registering them with the civil authorities for months and even years.

Or that they have to go look for them at their homes so that they can take the minors to receive their vaccines. This reflects not only the low availability of services or how unaffordable they are for some families, but also the gap in access to basic information on food, hygiene, health, and child development.

Most omissions by fathers, but particularly by mothers because they are disproportionately burdened with the care of minors, are not related to bad intentions, but rather to economic and social limitations.

For this reason, it is fundamental and urgent to understand care as one of the most important tasks for the functioning of society and the economy. Redistribute care, revalue it and remunerate it adequately.