You'd think that the United States would be a great place to be a mother.

In fact, you'd think it would be the No. 1 country to be a mother, with all our freedoms, economic status, medical care and advances, access to education, clean water and other sanitary conditions, etc.

Turns out, the U.S. ranks 27th in the world for well-being of mothers and children, according to Save the Children, the U.S.-based independent global humanitarian organization that presents an annual Mother's Day report. That's one rank lower than last year.

The "State of the World's Mothers 2008" compares conditions in 146 countries.

As in past years, Nordic countries topped the list and African and Middle Eastern countries brought up the rear.

The top 10 are Sweden, Norway, Iceland, New Zealand, Denmark, Australia, Finland, Ireland, Germany and France. The worst countries for mothers are (from the bottom up) Niger, Chad, Yemen, Sierra Leone, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Djibouti, Mali and Ethiopia.

Conditions for mothers and their children in countries at the bottom are bleak, according to the organization. One in 21 mothers die in her lifetime from pregnancy-related causes, more than 1 child in 6 dies before her fifth birthday, and roughly 1 in 3 suffers from malnutrition and only 3 girls for every 4 boys are enrolled in school.

The top 10 ranked high in support for child support services and good access to basic health care (read: mostly universal health care and government-supported child care).

When looking at just the health of the children, Italy actually ranks No. 1 and Niger last out of 168 countries. Nearly every child in Italy enjoys good health and education, where as in Niger, 1 in 4 children die before reaching age 5.

It's been widely reported in the past that the infant mortality rate in the United States is higher than almost all other developed countries, as well as Cuba. (In Pittsburgh it continues to be particularly high, mostly because of the high rate of premature births and smoking among pregnant women) And the U.S. ranks 45th in the world for life expectancy.

It will be interesting to see if the results of November's presidential election here will promote any changes in this very important measure of how we're taking care of our country's most valuable assets.