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United Nations Foundation
United Nations Foundation
Then, Now, Next

In 75 years, the UN has made big leaps in improving global health — but we still have a lot to do

In 75 years, the UN has made big leaps in improving global health — but we still have a lot to do
WHO/Daniel Hodgson
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On June 26, 1945, delegates from 50 countries gathered in the Herbst Theater auditorium in San Francisco.

They were there to sign the U.N. Charter, a treaty that, in its 19 chapters and 111 articles, founded and established a world organization devoted to saving "succeeding generations from the scourge of war." It would do so by maintaining international peace and security, strengthening international law, expanding human rights, and promoting social progress and better standards of life.

On that day, World War II was not even yet over — that day wouldn't come until September 2nd, 1945 when the Japanese surrendered — but it established an organization that, as one of its first endeavors, helped distribute lifesaving supplies and medicines to countries reeling from disease, injury and the trauma of war.

And that would be far from its first milestone towards creating a healthier world. Improving health around the world has always been a key priority of the U.N.

In fact, when diplomats met to create the organization, one of the very first things they discussed was setting up a global health agency, something they did just three years later when, on April 7, 1948, they established the World Health Organization (WHO) with the mission to help deliver on the promise of health for all. It tackles infectious disease, reduces preventable deaths for girls and women, and improves access to safe water and sanitation; it fights for the rights of people with disabilities and mental health issues; and it strengthens health systems.

Now in 2020, the UN though WHO is once again providing lifesaving equipment and supplies to more than 130 countries — leading the global fight against COVID-19.

WHO is just one of the big leaps that the U.N. has taken towards improving global health. Here are a few of the many other accomplishments it has made:

1946: The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) is founded to help provide support and relief to children living in countries impacted by war.

1950s: This is the golden age of antibiotics discovery and implementation, helping fight such diseases as bacterial meningitis (which was fatal for children 90% of the time before), strep throat, and the spread of ear infections to the brain.

1969: The United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) begins operations to empower women to decide if and when they have a family, to improve childbirth safety, and help children reach their potential.

1979: Smallpox is eradicated after a 12-year WHO global vaccination campaign with global partners.

1988: The Global Polio Eradication Initiative is established. Since then, polio cases have decreased by 99% because of access to immunizations.

2000: The largest-ever gathering of world leaders issues the Millennium Declaration, which lays out eight aspirational goals. Three of those goals are specifically designed to spur progress in child health, maternal health and combating disease.

2001: The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is created to help fight the three largest infectious disease killers in the world through global cooperation.

2006: The number of children who die before their fifth birthday declines below 10 million for the first time.

2015: All U.N. Member States adopt the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. One of those goals is to ensure health and well-being for everyone everywhere.

2018: WHO, the World Meteorological Organization, the UN Convention on Climate Change and UN Environment hold the first Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health at WHO headquarters in Geneva.

2019: 190 U.N. Member States adopt the historic political declaration on Universal Health Coverage at the UN General Assembly identifying ways to make health for all a reality.

UNICEF/Carolina Cabral

As we approach the 75th anniversary of the UN Charter's signing, there is still a lot of work to be done.

At least half the world's population is still without access to essential health services. Even though half as many under-5s die now than before 2000, still 5.4m children die before their fifth birthday each year. Racial and economic disparities are still rampant in healthcare, affecting maternal mortality rates, access to care, and quality of treatment. The proportion of mothers who do not survive childbirth is 14 percent higher in developing nations. And now, COVID-19 has created one of the most pressing public health crises we've experienced in the last century.

The pandemic is threatening to erode and reverse current progress, and yet, in May, President Trump announced the US's plans to end its relationship with WHO. This move could hamper the world's response to the virus, including vaccine development, science and information sharing, resource mobilization, and efforts to mitigate the impact of the virus on the most vulnerable. It also jeopardizes hard-won gains on diseases like polio, putting progress at risk.

If we don't defeat COVID-19 everywhere, we won't be safe anywhere — and we can only beat it by working together.

It will take action from everyone to build stable and fair health systems that challenge misinformation, invest in vaccines, and strengthen relief from disease outbreaks.

You can learn more about these goals by checking out "Voice Our Future" — an immersive and interactive reality experience exploring the then, now, and next of some of the most critical challenges of our times. You can also further the reach of your voice by taking the one-minute survey to help inform the UN's thinking and priorities.

health
Family

Heartbroken wife files for divorce after DNA test reveals 2-year-old son isn't hers

She first became suspicious when her son didn't have blue eyes.

via Liza Summer and Liza Summer

A woman in distress contemplates her future.

It’s pretty common to hear a story about a man whose life is turned upside down after a DNA test proves that he’s not the father of a child he thought was his. However, hearing a mother dealing with the same scenario is rare. That’s why a recent post on Reddit has so many people talking.

A user named ThrowRA-3xbetrayal claims that a DNA test shows her husband is the father of the 2-year-old boy they’ve raised but she isn’t the biological mother.

The story began 6 years ago when the couple tried to conceive but had no luck. The woman then discovered she had a “medical condition” that meant she couldn’t bring a baby to term, which resulted in a partial hysterectomy. The woman, who refers to herself as the family’s “breadwinner” took on multiple jobs to pay a surrogate to have their child.

“I still had my ovaries so we started looking into cost of a surrogate. It is really expensive! My close friend since college who'd already had 2 kids of her own, offered to serve as the surrogate for us to cut down on costs. After two disappointing IVF sessions that did not result in pregnancy, she became pregnant on the 3rd try and carried a boy to term for us,” ThrowRA-3xbetrayal wrote.

The couple was over the moon after the birth of the boy and the surrogate became a bigger part of their lives.

dna test, paternity test, maternity testA woman in distress being comforted.via Liza Summer

“My friend and my husband started talking more and I would sometimes come home from my weekend job to find her already hanging out at our house when my husband was there,” ThrowRA-3xbetrayal wrote. “I chalked it up as innocuous and it's good for her to know my husband better since she was in the process of hopefully carrying our child for us. I was grateful to have someone helping us have a child.”

But the mother became suspicious because the baby’s eyes were brown when she and her husband’s were blue.

The mother took the child to a doctor’s appointment and she received some devastating news. She discovered that her son’s blood type is B+ while his father’s is O+ and She is A+. The doctor said it was “biologically impossible” for her son to have that blood type given his parents’.

ThrowRA-3xbetrayal thought the fertility clinic made a horrible mistake. She took a DNA test and found that her husband was the boy’s father, but she was not the mother. “Then my husband confessed that he'd slept with my friend (our surrogate) on a few different occasions during our struggle to have her get pregnant with our embryos,” ThrowRA-3xbetrayal wrote. “This means what I thought was our son conceived by IVF and carried with a surrogate isn't my son at all and was, in fact, conceived the old-fashioned way, which I can't ever do.”

The woman says that the terrible news felt like a triple betrayal. The woman has decided to divorce her husband and wants to give up any parental rights to the child. Her husband, the surrogate and her family all believe that she’s wrong to give up rights to the child that she’s raised for 2 years.

She asked Reddit’s AITA forum to tell her if she was in the wrong and the community responded with overwhelmingly positive support, affirming her tough decision.

dna test, paternity test, maternity testA happy toddler playing on the beach. via Taryn Elliott/Pexels

The most popular commenter said that she should sue the surrogate for taking her money without having her baby. “One of the things that gets me is that you were working extra jobs to pay for the surrogacy which I am assuming included her medical bills and financially supporting her. I would speak to a solicitor about suing her for your money back. She knew that if she was having sex then there was always a chance that the child was biologically hers,” they wrote.

Another affirmed the wife’s decision to leave her husband and to surrender any parental rights. “He cheated... it's not yours. I will absolutely tell you what I tell men posting this. It would be wonderful if you love the kid enough to stay, but if you're in shock and damaged too much to do so, you aren't the A**le for walking away,” they wrote.

Another pointed out that if a man were in this position, no one would judge him for giving up his parental rights. “If these roles were reversed and you were a man saying that his wife had cheated and had another man’s baby, people would have no problem telling him that he’s within his rights to leave and have nothing to do with the child if he doesn’t want to,” the commenter wrote.

If the story that ThrowRA-3xbetrayal wrote tells is true, it’s an incredible tragedy. She fought so hard to have a child only to realize she was living a lie two years later. So, let’s hope she found some solace in the hundreds of people who supported her decision to move on with her life while also sharing some great advice on going forward.

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Health

Longevity test: If you can hang from a bar this long, you’re likely to live longer

Hang time is a great measurement of overall health.

via Ketut Subiyanto/Pexels and Dinielle De Veyra/Pexels

A man and a woman doing dead hangs.

Would you really want to know how long you have to live? On one hand, it’d probably inspire you to go out and complete your bucket list. On the other, it may be depressing to know just how many days you have left.

Well, science has yet to discover a way to determine the average person's life expectancy. However, some indicators can show whether someone is in danger of having their life cut short by deteriorating health.

A study published by Clinical Interventions in Aging in 2019 determined that handgrip strength can be a reliable proxy for how long one has to live. One of the best ways to judge handgrip strength is to time how long you can hang from a bar. To test your grip strength, find yourself a pull-up bar, whether at a gym or local park, take a deep breath and start hanging.

The study found that 30 seconds is a good target for women and 60 is an excellent goal for men. Therefore, if you go longer than the goal, you’re looking at a long life. But if you can’t quite get there, your life may be shorter than you’d like.



Dr. Peter Attia believes that grip strength is a great way to determine one’s overall health.

“It's just a great proxy for overall body strength and muscle mass, but I think it's also a very functional form of strength,” he said on “The Drive” podcast. “Basically, everything in your upper body is mediated through your hands. And if your grip is weak, everything Downstream of that is weak. When you watch someone, who's got a weak grip deadlifting. It's very difficult for them to deadlift correctly because they don't create a proper wedge.

Doctors Eve M. Glazier and Elizabeth Ko at UCLA Health say poor grip strength is connected to numerous diseases. “Research continues to link a decline in grip strength to a range of adverse health issues, including heart disease, arthritis, osteoporosis, Type 2 diabetes and certain cancers. It has also been found to be a predictor of the likelihood of post-surgical complications, post-surgical recovery time and mortality,” they wrote on the UCLA Health blog.

Weight can also significantly affect how long a person can hang from a bar. So don’t lighter people have an unfair advantage advantage than those on the heavier side? Well, weight is also an important indicator of longevity. A study published in Aging Cell found a direct correlation between increased body mass and decreased longevity.



The good news for people who didn’t quite make their hang time goal is that you can improve it by practicing dead hangs.

How to perform a dead hang (according to Healthline):

  • Use a secure overhead bar. Use a step or bench to reach the bar with your arms easily. You don’t want to jump straight into a dead hang.
  • Grip the bar with an overhand grip (palms facing away from you). Aim to keep your arms shoulder-width apart.
  • Move your feet off the step or bench so you’re hanging on to the bar.
  • Keep your arms straight and stay relaxed.
  • If you’re new to the exercise, hang for 10 seconds. Then, work your way up to 45 seconds to 1 minute at a time.
  • Slowly step back onto the step or bench before releasing your arms. Repeat up to 3 times if you wish.





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Pop Culture

The Bee Gees a capella version of 'How Deep is Your Love' might be even better than the original

Only family can harmonize this well.

via Edu Seijas/YouTube

The Bee Gees singing "How Deep is Your Love" in 1998.

In 1998, the Bee Gees, brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb, stopped by ITV’s “Des O'Connor Tonight” with acoustic guitars in hand to promote their recent release, “One Night Only,” an album and live concert DVD featuring many of the band’s biggest hits.

The highlight of the performance was when Barry got ready to strum his guitar for a performance of “How Deep is Your Love,” the 1977 megahit from the “Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack,” but instead chose to sing the song a capella.

Barry starts the song solo in his beautiful falsetto, but then, when his brothers join him, they create a wonderful harmony that only brothers can make. The show’s host, Des O’Conner, a notable singer himself, even joins in for a few bars.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

Earlier in the performance, the brothers played their version of “Islands in the Stream,” a song made famous by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rodgers in 1983 that was written by the Bee Gees. In 1998, the song was enjoying a resurgence as its melody was used in the song “Ghetto Superstar” by Pras of The Fugees.

Robin Gibb later admitted that the song was initially written for Marvin Gaye to sing, but he was tragically murdered in 1984 by his father. The band also had Diana Ross in mind while composing the tune.

During the appearance, the band also sang “Guilty,” a song that the Bee Gees wrote for Barbara Streisand and Barry produced in 1980.

You can watch the entire performance in the video below.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

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Family

'Sleep training' is a heated debate in the parenting world. It shouldn't be.

Any parent who takes a definitive stance on sleep training needs to understand a few things.

Photo by RDNE Stock project/Pexels

Parents debate whether it's wrong to sleep train babies.

Welcoming a new baby to the world is a wonderful but daunting experience, and no matter how much you try to prepare, there will always be something you aren't fully prepared for.

For many parents, that thing is lack of sleep.

You can hear parents talk about exhaustion and sleep deprivation and still be wholly unprepared for what a baby who isn't a great sleeper does to to your psyche. It's no surprise that many parents turn to parenting books and "experts" to try to figure out how to get their babies to sleep, which is where the idea of "sleep training" comes in.

Sleep training is a broad term for teaching or training a baby to go to sleep (or back to sleep) without needing to be soothed by a parent or other caregiver. There are many sleep training methods that range from fairly common sense to borderline abuse, which is one reason it seems to spark big debates between parents. Everyone's talking about a different method when they defend or vilify sleep training.

Sleep training usually involves letting a baby fuss or cry for some length of time, which some see as problematic because of research on the importance of responding to babies' cries. Others say that a little crying is a small price to pay because it's healthier in the long run for baby and parents to get good sleep.

Of course, there's a huge difference between "crying or fussing for a few minutes" and "wailing and screaming with no end in sight," and that's where the big disconnect comes in. For some parents, sleep training entails the former, and it works, so they swear by it. For others, it entails the latter, and it's a nightmare, so they think it's horrible.

There's also a huge difference between "I'd love it if my baby would sleep all night without waking" and "I think I might die if I don't get a 4-hour stretch of uninterrupted sleep." Desperation makes many parents who might not love the idea of sleep training to give it a go.

I have some personal experience with this. My first baby wasn't a great sleeper. I remember thinking, at six weeks postpartum, "There's no way a person can survive on this little sleep." I adored my baby, but the sleep deprivation from waking up several times a night for weeks on end felt like literal torture.

She started sleeping through the night when she was a few months old, but that didn't last long. Teething happened. Then crawling happened. It seemed like just when she'd get into a nice sleep routine, some milestone would throw us right back to waking up and crying multiple times a night. She slept in our room next to our bed, so it was easy enough to nurse her back to sleep, but it was still night after night of disrupted sleep.

I was desperate to try something, but I wasn't keen on the idea of sleep training. It's a natural instinct to respond to your baby's cries, so walking away didn't feel right. One book had suggested leaving the baby in their crib to cry by themselves and not pick them up no matter what. If they got so upset that they threw up, you were just to clean them up and do the same thing again. Um, no thank you.

But I had heard other parents say they tried different sleep training methods that involved leaving them to cry for just a few minutes, going in to pat/comfort them, leaving them again for a little longer, and going back and forth until they eventually fall asleep. I read so many parents say something like, "It took like 15 minutes of fussing for them to fall asleep the first night, 5 minutes the second and after that they just went right to sleep and didn't wake up until morning!"

baby sleeping If only all babies slept this peacefully.Photo by Yan Krukau/Pexels

That sounded reasonable. So I tried it, a couple of times.

It went nothing like how those parents described. Not even close.

First of all, my baby did not "fuss." It was full-on crying, wailing and screaming with snot and drool involved. Secondly, there was no patting her to calm her down—she would only calm down if I picked her up. Third, the wailing when I left the room didn't ever subside, it only got worse and worse. I felt like I was torturing my baby and it was breaking my mama heart, so we gave it up.

I have no doubt that those parents were telling the truth about how sleep training worked with their child. It just absolutely did not work that way with mine.

That baby is now 24 and has slept in her own bed all night for over two decades. My other two kids had their own sleep personalities as babies—one of them super easy and the other more like my first. I didn't do anything different to make them that way—it's just how they were. It was hard sometimes. We co-slept as needed. It all worked out in the end.

There are a few things I know for sure after parenting three kids and talking with countless other parents:

1) Every baby, child and family is different and what works for one won't necessarily work for another. As long as no one is actually being abused or neglected, do what works for your kid and your family.

2) Anyone who offers definitive, one-size-fits-all advice on any part of parenting is flat-out wrong. One size most definitely does not fit all.

3) Sleep is important, but unless you've slept a night in their bed, don't judge a parent for how they choose to handle sleep with their baby. What's right for you may not be right for them.

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Internet

Nokia is bringing back the flip phone. Mom warns teens to be mindful to avoid a taste of 2002.

"If I were a teenager in this day and age, I'd be terrified."

Photo credit: Canva

Mom warns teens about Nokia bringing back flip phones

Are you over the age of 35? Do you remember your first cell phone? Those things were life changing for Millennials who were just getting their first real taste of the freedom that comes with remaining reachable. Many of us memorized the feel of the buttons so we could sneak and text our friends under the desk during a boring lecture in class.

Kids today will never know the skill it took to not only memorize where the keys were but to press the five button three times to get to the right letter. T9 texting should've been an Olympic sport. But texting and making calls was about all those phones were good for because the internet was still using dialup so the world was not at your fingertips–just your bestie.

Gen Z has never had to experience technological advancement purgatory when it comes to electronic devices, but all that is about to change. Well, for some, if parents take the advice of Lydia Kyle.

Recently the mom shared that Nokia is coming back out with their old flip phone, which could be a great tool for parents of teens according to her.

"They're missing a huge, huge marketing area when it comes to parents of teenagers. If I was a teenager I would be shaking in my boots because the second you slip up on Snapchat, no more smartphone for you. Dumb choices. Dumb phone," Kyle tells the phone maker while encouraging parents to use the phone to solve some of today's problems caused by social media.

The new Nokia phone is currently being marketed to Millennials looking to detox from social media according to Kyle, but parents in the comments like this mom's suggestions.



One parent points out the lack of security features as a positive for parents, "This makes absolute sense!!! Don’t have to worry about your kid cracking the passcode to their smartphone limits, this is a very good idea!!"

Some parents are already on trend, "You are spot on! We got one for my son going into middle school. No apps nothing. He can call and text. The only draw back is that it doesn’t have find my. So we had to get Apple air tags. Otherwise it’s the perfect starter phone!!"

"My sister has several teens, and none of them have smart phones. They have to use like old school flip phones. Which I think is great. It allows them to communicate but not have to deal with the additional issues of smart phones and social media," another shares.

The overall consensus is positive, "literally best idea for middle schoolers that have after school activities and you really need them to have a phone in case the activity bus decides not to run that day and they have to text you to come get them (been there many times) but you don’t want them having access to a smart phone!"

This video may be made in jest but parents seem to be finding this as a viable solution to the over exposure of screens, online bullying, and exposure to social media too early. So maybe Nokia does need to branch out in their marketing a bit, old school tech is also really big for younger generations so some kids may not even fight parents on it.

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