China Conference of Maternal and Child Health Held in Beijing

On 18-19 May 2019, the China Conference of Maternal and Child Health, jointly organized by the China Preventive Medicine Association (CPMA), The George Institute for Global Health (TGI) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), was held in Beijing. With the theme focussed on the entire life cycle, safeguarding maternal and child health, more than 100 domestic and international experts in the fields of maternal and child health, reproductive health, vaccination and immunization, to name a few, attended and presented their research at the conference.

Over 1,700 people from all levels of maternal and child healthcare, medical and physical examination institutions as well as community (township) health service centres, disease control institutions, medical colleges and research institutes, attended the conference.

Longde Wang, President of CPMA, and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, emphazised in her opening remarks that the health of women and children is the foundation of the sustainable development of human beings. Furthermore, maternal and child health indicators are not only internationally recognized as the most basic of health indicators, but they are also an important comprehensive index in the measurement of socio-economic and human development. For the past several years, the Chinese government has given great importance to the issues of maternal and child health, and placing them as a high priority. With that, maternal and child health continues to improve across the country. The CPMA is committed to the long-term development of maternal and child health. The 10 maternal and child health-related subsidiaries, covers many areas of maternal and child health, reproductive health, birth defects, vaccination and immunization. They have made fruitful contribution in the service of maternal and child health policy development, academic exchanges, science popularization, scientific and technological achievements etc.

Li Zhang, Deputy Director of the Office of the Women and Children's Work Committee of the State Council highlighted that since the founding of the People's Republic of China 70 years ago, China's maternal and child health undertakings have had brilliant achievements. This is mainly due to the good policy environment provided by the party and the government, mainly due to the joint efforts of maternal and child science and technology workers across the nation and wide support of people from all walks of life. Entering a new era, the health of the people has become even more important.

Amanda Henry, Senior Research Fellow at TGI Australia and the University of New South Wales, stated that the institute continues to take on the responsibility of improving women's health, carrying out clinical, and epidemiological and health systems research projects are the starting point to safeguarding maternal and child health. Babatunde Ahonsi, UNFPA Representative to China, called on countries worldwide to carry the cause and forge ahead into the future, to overcome obstacles, and commit to the improvement of maternal and child health as always. Tuohong Zhang from the World Health Organization, fully affirmed the achievements of China's work on maternal and child health.

During the conference, Li Song, the Deputy Director of the National Maternal and Child Health Committee, gave a keynote report titled "China Women and Child Health Development and Prospects" which was a comprehensive exposition of the development and achievements of maternal and child health since the founding of New China 70 years ago as well as the current challenge faced. Academician Jie Qiao, Dean of the Third Hospital of Peking University introduced the current situation of Chinese female infertility as a population and international frontier response measures at the conference. Dr. Babatunde Ahonsi, UNFPA, Amanda Henry, TGI, Xiaona Huang, UNICEF Health Officer and Research Fellow, reported on "An Unfinished Career: The Pursuit of Rights and Choices for Everyone ” , “ A Global Perspective on Chronic Diseases and Women's Health” , and “Global Early Childhood Development Action Framework”, respectively.

There were 12 sub-venues that were established in parallel, where the subsidiaries of the CPMA carried out thematic discussions on popular issues in the field of maternal and child health. Over a hundred experts and representatives from the areas of adolescent health, women's health, children’s health, prevention and control of birth defects, reproductive health, vaccination and immunization, early-life development along with disease prevention and control, prevention and treatment of pelvic floor dysfunction, adult and child disease (chronic disease) prevention and control, fertility preservation, allergy prevention and control shared the latest academic achievements as well as prevention and control practices; simultaneously, the conference also had a cross-strait maternal and child health sub-venue to hold academic exchanges with Taiwan's maternal and child health experts.

The conference gathered renowned experts domestic and abroad, high-end cutting-edge academic reports, a prominent theme, many quality perspectives generated from the sub-venue topical discussions, ingenuously designed round-table interviews, recording a total of 129 accepted papers and 22 top selected papers. The conference is sure to play a positive role in promoting academic exchanges and furthering the development of maternal and child health in China.

Xinhua News Agency, Guangming Online, Health Newspaper and other media outlets provided live coverage of the event, the organizers were also given strong support by Pfizer Investment Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Sanofi Pasteur Biological Products Co., Ltd. and 30 other companies.