Children’s Health in Russia: History and Tasks of the Decade of Childhood (To the 255th Anniversary of the State System of Child Health)

The review is devoted to the analysis of the historical stages of the formation of the state system of child health protection in Russia. Innovative organizational technologies of Russian pediatricians were indicated to have become the most important component of the Soviet system of maternal and child health. In Soviet Russia, the issues of child health were priority areas in the social policy of the State. The national character, the creation of a socio-legal base for the protection of motherhood and childhood determined in the country the dynamic development of a network of institutions providing medical and preventive care for children, allowed achieving significant positive results in reducing the infant mortality rate and fighting socially caused forms of pathology in children. The Decade of Childhood determines new promising directions for the development of the system for the protection of motherhood and childhood.