India has highest newborn deaths

7.8 lakh stillbirths, infant deaths occur every year, claims report in India accounts for the greatest burden of newborn deaths in the world, according to a recently published report. Half of the newborn deaths worldwide occur in just five countries, with India recording the highest at 7,79,000 per year, followed by Nigeria ( 2,76,000), Pakistan ( 2,02,400), China ( 1,57,000), and the Democratic Republic of Congo ( 1,18,000), the report said.

A review published in the Lancet has revealed the enormous burden that stillbirths and newborn deaths continue to exert, with nearly 8,000 newborn babies dying every day ( 2 · 9 million deaths per year). According to experts, there are huge variations within and between different countries in the figures released.

Led by Professor Joy Lawn, at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Save the Children, UK, the report suggests that even though overall rates of newborn deaths have been declining since 1990, the rate of reduction between 1990 and 2012 ( 2% average annual rate of reduction) is much lower than that for children aged 1- 59 months ( 3.4%), and also lower than for maternal mortality between 1990 and 2013 ( 2.6%).

The authors estimated that 2 · 6 million stillbirths ( in the final 3 months of pregnancy) occur annually ( around 7,000 every day). Significantly, an estimated 1.2 million women experience the loss of their baby during labour, after full nine months of pregnancy.

These babies, who may die just five minutes before birth, account for nearly half of all stillbirths, but are not counted in global data.

According to Professor Lawn, the study results highlight an important, yet largely unacknowledged, global problem: “In most countries stillbirths do not get birth or death certificates, which contributes to their invisibility; hence, most of the world’s newborn deaths and almost all stillbirths enter and leave the world without a piece of paper to record their existence.