On behalf of the Organizing Committee of the GLOBAL CONGRESS OF MATERNAL AND INFANT HEALTH, we are pleased to invite you to join us in Barcelona, in September 2010.
This event will be a milestone in the history of Perinatal Medicine for several reasons:

Firstly, the most important opinion leaders of Maternal and Infant Health around the world are in the faculty of the congress. Scientific experts from over 80 countries of the five continents will be in Barcelona to share knowledge and experience on relevant topics and novel aspects of this field. For a few days, Barcelona will be the capital of the World Perinatal Medicine. A great effort has been made to present a programme with a balanced content, including research, clinical practice, daily problems and future prospecting.

Secondly, we have been particularly concerned on the huge differences in medical care needs in relation to Reproductive Medicine around the world, cultural diversities, and the very unfortunate reality that modern medicine is a privilege resource for only a few. For this reason, the key words of this Congress are: globality, dialogue and solidarity. Globality because the programme of the meeting includes participants from developed and developing countries as well as not only professionals in Maternal and Infant Health, but also sociologists, social workers, politicians and others. All international societies of Perinatal Medicine, non-governmental organizations and international agencies involved in the field will actively take part in the Congress activities. Dialogue refers to the proposal of specific sessions aimed to increase intercultural knowledge, promoting the interchange of information, beliefs and ideas in the North-South and in the East-West directions. Solidarity implies the strong wish of the organization to generate an adequate climate to promote an intense cooperation between high – and low - income nations.

Barcelona is one of the most beautiful and attractive cities in the world and offers the ideal framework for this outstanding event, not only from the richness of our artistic, cultural and architectural perspective, but also because one of the best, modern and fully technical equipped congress palace in Europe is here.
 

Thanks to Matres Mundi’s initiative, on these last years it has been possible to keep constant reunions among the institutions and people concerned with Mother and Infant Health in the world. Consequently the GLOBAL CONGRESS OF MATERNAL AND INFANT HEALTH organization was born; its first edition will take place in Barcelona-Spain in September 22 to 26, 2010, organized by Matres Mundi.

This CONGRESS will include a reunion which will be attended by an important number of high level leaders on Perinatal Medicine (250). The dramatic situation of mothers and children in the poorest countries will be specially emphasized, Matres Mundi being aware that there are more reasons than just cultural diversity, like example precarious conditions for maternity in so many countries in the world.

This is the reason why several important items of discussion on solidarity have been introduced to help the most unprotected of maternities.

The idea behind the Congress is to attempt to bring together all the International Perinatal societies, NGOs and professionals involved in the reproductive process (obstetricians, neonatologists, midwives, nurses, epidemiologists, anthropologists, sociologists, etc). Representatives from all countries, particularly from those less scientifically advanced, will be invited with the aim to establish a NORTH-SOUTH and EAST-WEST dialogue that will steer the course of Maternal and Infant Health in the world.

The situation of MATERNITY in the North and the West, and of course, in the South and East of the World, is absolutely different, and not only as a consequence of the cultural contrast, but especially as a reflex of financial inequalities.

While maternal mortality in the prosperous countries of the Occident is almost irrelevant (20 per 100.000 live births), in the developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America it reaches figures ranging between 300 and 900 per 100.000 live births.

The same occurs with neonatal and infant mortality. The first is 10 times greater in the developing countries than in the western developed countries. As far as the infant mortality is concerned, every year 11 million children die in the developing countries, due to illnesses perfectly curable in Europe or America.

On the other hand, the situation of women in some of the Eastern countries is very negative, with economic deficits (70% of the poor are women), cultural deficits (90% of the illiterate are women) and social deficits. Five hundred million women suffer some kind of violence every year. One hundred and thirty million suffer genital mutilation, six million are starving and three million adolescents are forced to become prostituted in such conditions that their life expectancy in of only 25 years.

The efforts up to now developed by international organizations (United Nations and its specialized agencies, the World Bank, NGOs, etc.) have produced very poor results. Even the socio-economic and sanitary situation of some of these countries has worsened in the last decade.

There is general agreement among the experts that this situation will only be modified to the better, besides the western economic efforts to stimulate development, if and when it will be possible to involve the cultural and religious leaders of these countries, first propitiating the dialogue and afterwards the adoption of cultural changes. Through better education, extended health knowledge, demographic changes, a better health systems organization, and a controlled assistance to improve the infrastructures, the situation should change, reaching a clear reduction of maternal, perinatal and infant mortality figures.

But the first step is to establish dialogue between civilizations and cultures that will facilitate the calm and dispassionate analysis of the problems, its consequences and the possible solutions. At least in the field of health, and particularly in the scope of Maternal and Infant Health, a true “Alliance of Civilizations” will not be possible if the people that live with these differences do not have the opportunity to meet and discuss their attitudes. In this field, as in so many others, politicians have to lead the way for the health professionals of both hemispheres. And these last have the moral obligation to look for and get involved in imaginative solutions. Definitely it is necessary to work hard to promote connivance in the whole world, and generate the culture of peace.

It is foreseen to organize new editions of this Congress in the course of time with a periodicity to be defined later on.
 

This congress bears a very specific profile, which spins around three words: GLOBALITY, DIALOGUE and SOLIDARITY.

The fist one, GLOBALITY, refers to the fact that, unlike the conventional congresses on Perinatal Medicine, the programme of this meeting will include people from both developed and developing countries, from the South and the East. With an integrating criterion, in this congress will participate not only professionals on Maternal and Infant Health (obstetricians, paediatricians, midwifes, etc.) but also politicians, anthropologists, sociologists, social workers and others.

Globality will also become apparent with the fact that all international continental societies of Perinatal Medicine, as well as NGOs and international agencies specifically involved in the field of Maternal Infant Health, will actively participate in the congress.

The term DIALOGUE refers to the inclusion of specific sessions dedicated to increase the intercultural knowledge, promoting the interchange of enlightenments, beliefs and ideas both in the North-South sense and in the East-West direction. We pretend that through better information on the various cultures and varied civilisations, cooperation systems can be established among them that will influence positively at social, technological and organizational levels.

Lastly the meaning SOLIDARITY implies the strong wish of the organizers to generate an adequate climate to promote, with the help of the NGOs and international agencies, intense cooperation between the high income countries and those of low income. We must by all means try to better up the dramatic situation of the Maternal and Infant Health in these last unfortunate countries.