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GLOBAL DEATHS OF newborn babies remain alarmingly high, particularly among the world’s poorest countries, Unicef has said.
The organisation’s new report on newborn mortality rates globally - Every Child Alive – has found that babies born in Japan, Iceland and Singapore have the best chance at survival.
In contrast, newborns in Pakistan, the Central African Republic (CAF) and Afghanistan face the worst odds.
One in every 22 babies dies in Pakistan, one in every 24 in CAF, and one in every 25 in Afghanistan. However, just one in every newborn 1,111 in Japan dies, and one in every 1,000 in Iceland.
Ireland has ranked 164th in the global neonatal mortality rate (using median value). In 2016, one in every 455 newborn died.
Around the world
Globally, in low-income countries, the average newborn mortality rate is 27 deaths per 1,000 births. In high-income countries, that rate is three deaths per 1,000.
The report also notes that eight out of the 10 most dangerous places to be born are in sub-Saharan Africa, where pregnant women are much less likely to receive assistance during delivery due to poverty, conflict and weak institutions.
Unicef said that if every country brought its newborn mortality rate down to the high-income average by the year 2030, a total of 16 million lives could be saved.
More than 80% of newborn deaths are due to prematurity, complications during birth or infections such as pneumonia and sepsis, the report said.
Unicef said that some of these deaths could be prevented with access to well-trained midwives, along with clean water, disinfectants, breastfeeding within the first hour, skin-to-skin contact and good nutrition.
However, a shortage of well-trained health workers and midwives in many countries has meant that thousands don’t receive the life-saving support they need to survive.
For example, Unicef outlined that while there are 218 doctors, nurses and midwives in Norway to serve 10,000, that ratio is one per 10,000 in Somalia.
“While we have more than halved the number of deaths among children under the age of five in the last quarter century, we have not made similar progress in ending deaths among children less than one-month-old,” Henrietta Fore, Unicef’s executive director said.
“Given that the majority of these deaths are preventable, clearly we are failing the world’s poorest babies,” she said.
This month, Unicef is launching its Every Child Alive global campaign in a bid to demand solutions on behalf of the world’s newborns.
“Every year, 2.6 million newborns around the world do not survive their first month of life. One million of them die the day they are born,” Forde said.
“We know we can save the vast majority of these with affordable, quality health care solutions for every mother and every newborn. Just a few small steps from all of us can help ensure the first small steps of each of these young lives.”
How have I never heard about this? What a story!! That telegraph man was very pragmatic wasn’t he? FairPlay.
@Deborah Behan: Quite a few of these accidental explosions have happened down the years – due to the somewhat US-centric nature of Wikipedia, I remember reading an “on this day” article about the Texas City Disaster of 1947 (ship containing 2,100 tons of ammonium nitrate exploded), which I had also never heard of – almost as powerful as the Halifax one mentioned here.
Wow, never knew about this. Sounds horrific
Coleman was even more of an hero than is reported here. He actually was leaving with his boss having heard the news of the presently exploding ammo ship and turned back into his office, 750 yards from the epicenter of the blast, to send his warning telegram not only to one train but to all the trains and stations along the Intercolonial network. His wife and children at home were injured badly in the blast, he was killed, and his destroyed watch which along with his telegraph key and warped pen were donated by his widow to a museum, bears testimony to the terrible forces that must have borne down on him. His sacrifice saved hundreds of lives and alerted the world to what had happened.
Never heard of it, must have been kept quite during the war for moral purposes.
Was in Halifax a few years ago and they tell this story on the harbour tour. They also tell it in Boston at the Christmas tree lighting ceremony. The people of Nova Scotia send a Christmas tree to Boston every year as a symbol of gratitude as the first external help to arrive in Halifax were the fishermen from Boston.
Suppose it just depends on your level of interest in history, remember reading about it years ago.
@Andy Sinclair:I remember reading about this incident too – I’m glad the Journal decided to highlight it, and that they included the story about the railway dispatcher.
The three lines under the first picture are blowing my mind, no pun intended.
Mankind and his folly will destroy our home Mother Earth.
@James Doyle: We’re only tenants. We’ll be evicted before long.
Brilliant comment Jimmy…. brilliant….
Big and all as it was, a similar accidental explosion on a ship started the Spanish American war in 1909. There is a fantastic free naval museum in Madrid which outlines the event complete with a scale model of the ship and cutaway diagrams. Worth visiting Madrid for a weekend on its own to see.
@Ian Moloney: Not really on the same scale, at that period many of the Navies had the same issue due to changing to new powder mixtures, the Royal Navy had a Battleship blow up in harbour as well around the same period, and even by WW2 the Japanese had a Battleship blow up in port as well.
I have completely forgotten about the Afghanistan bomb.
There’s a very good movie called Shattered City (The Halifax Explosion) well worth watching.
Ok so, if the MOAB =11000 tonnes of TNT and the Halifax bomb=3000 tonnes of TNT, how is Halifax bigger?
@Bel O Connor: The MOAB is 11 tons not 11,000 tons.
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