Remember the mothers

Today is Mothering Sunday in the UK. In France it's the last Sunday in May unless this clashes with Pentecost, which it does this year, so it will be 7 June. For me it's always a toss up whether my sons will remember this date, or the French Fête des Mères, or both, or neither.

While I was contemplating that, I thought about all the different dates for Mothers' Days around the world. I've thought a lot about mothers over the years, especially those in developing nations where poverty is a fact of life.

Survival - mother and child tells the story of Marjana in Bangladesh, expecting her second child, where she is 50 times more likely to die in childbirth than a mother in a developed nation. Four million babies die within a month of birth.

She does it all and Tough women both are stories about "substitute" mothers, people who have taken over the care of children when parents have died from Aids, in the first case elder siblings, the second case grandmothers.

Child marriage. There is another sort of mother that we'd prefer didn't happen at all and these are the children who give birth at a very young age, because they have been married as children. Their bodies are not sufficiently mature to cope with childbirth and this can lead to complications and even death.

Finally, a few Numbers to highlight differences between countries:

• In Sweden, 1 in 17,400 mothers die in childbirth.
• In the UK, 1 in 8,200 mothers die in childbirth.
• In Sierra Leone, 1 in 8 mothers die in childbirth.

If (when) my sons don't notice the date, I can count my blessings.