“Postcard” is a new weekly column featuring guest bloggers from around the world. This week we’ve got a postcard from Maria Holm in Denmark! She’s a nurse and health visitor with passion for babies. This give her the perfect pitch to let us know why Denmark is the 6th best place to be a mother. Let’s read her postcard:

A lot is done from the state to secure a good start for a child. Every new pregnant woman and her partner/husband get information from the official health authorities.

In the 1920s the Danish authorities were aware of being behind other countries we normally compared with, on the annual death rate of new-born babies. A leaflet was made to instruct the mothers how to act, but it didn’t seem to have any effect. The high mortality had to do with bad housing, hygiene and too little knowledge on the right nutrition for…