Each year, the Save the Children Fund releases the “State of the World’s Mothers Report,” detailing the worst and best places to raise children.

India has the highest newborn mortality rate in the world with 300,000 babies dying the same day they are born. This constitutes about a third of total newborn deaths around the world.

Globally, 40 million women give birth without professional help. In many cases, maternal care is far too expensive, sometimes amounting to the cost of a family’s food bill for an entire month.

Moreover, 50,000 Indian women die yearly from complications during childbirth. Most of the time, women give birth at home. Those who receive care in a public hospital rarely have better conditions, or even more favorable outcomes.

The report also revealed that the greatest gap between the rich and the poor exists in India. Children living in extreme poverty are three times more likely to die before the age of five in comparison with more economically advantaged families.

Save the Children’s Saving Newborn Lives program is supported by the Bill and Melina Gates Foundation. Started in 2000, Saving Newborn Lives is globally distinguished as the leading program advocating for newborn health.

Close to two million babies all over the world do not survive past their first month. Of the 18,000 children who die before reaching age five, 44 percent are newborns.

Universally, four out of five infant deaths occur because of the following three causes: premature birth, development of infections or difficulties arising during birth. Each cause is preventable and treatable. Saving Newborn Lives believes that half of these deaths would not occur if expectant mothers had access to free healthcare.

Saving Newborn Lives extends aid to newborns in the most destitute circumstances in order to ensure survival past the one-month mark. They have specific programs based in seven different countries including Afghanistan, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Nepal and Vietnam.

In collaboration with regional, national and global networks, Saving Newborn Lives institutes solutions to successfully improve infant health. The program promotes the availability of more medical assistance through regular checkups as well as emergency treatment. This impacts the progression toward higher quality clinics, and more knowledgeable and skillful health practitioners.

Pediatricians working for Saving Newborn Lives inform mothers and clinicians about critical practices that could secure the health of their newborns, such as how to breast-feed, administer antibiotics or recognize the onset of infection.

The fourth Millennium Development Goal mandated by the United Nations aims to lessen the 1990 child mortality rate by two-thirds by 2015. In the past decade, child mortality has been diminished from 12 million by roughly one-half. Thanks to the work of organizations like Save the Children, countries plagued with poverty have seen improvements that allow for the attainment of this goal.

Along with its work overseas, Saving Newborn Lives now runs an information portal through the Healthy Newborn Network, an online source for information about newborn health.

– Lillian Sickler

Sources: NPR, Save the Children Healthy Newborn Network
Photo: World Health Organization