Kiribati’s Christmas Island, a small island in the Pacific, will most likely welcome 2018’s first baby; the United States, its last. Globally, over half of these births are estimated to take place in nine countries:
India — 69,070
China — 44,760
Nigeria — 20,210
Pakistan — 14,910
Indonesia — 13,370
The United States of America — 11,280
The Democratic Republic of Congo — 9,400
Ethiopia — 9,020
Bangladesh — 8,370
Source: Internet
While many babies will survive, some will not make it past their first day. Across the world in 2016, an estimated 2,600 children died within the first 24 hours every day of the year. For almost 2 million newborns, their first week was also their last. In all, 2.6 million children died before the end of their first month. It is estimated that every day 50 newborn die in Viet Nam. Among those children, more than 80 per cent of all newborn deaths are due to preventable and treatable causes such as premature birth, complications during delivery, and infections like sepsis and pneumonia.
“This New Year, UNICEF’s resolution is to help give every child more than an hour, more than a day, more than a month - more than survival,” said Youssouf Abdel-Jelil, UNICEF Representative in Viet Nam. “We call on governments and partners to join the fight to save millions of children’s lives by providing proven, low-cost solutions.”
Over the past two decades, the world has seen unprecedented progress in child survival, halving the number of children worldwide who die before their fifth birthday to 5.6 million in 2016. But despite these advances, there has been slower progress for newborns. Babies dying in the first month account for 46 per cent of all deaths among children under five.
Mr Youssouf Abdel-Jelil, Representative UNICEF in Viet Nam. (Photo: UNICEF)
Next month, UNICEF will launch Every Child Alive, a global campaign to demand and deliver affordable, quality health care solutions for every mother and newborn. These include a steady supply of clean water and electricity at health facilities, the presence of a skilled health attendant during birth, disinfecting the umbilical cord, breastfeeding within the first hour after birth, skin-to-skin contact between the mother and child, and Kangaroo mother care.
“Taking this opportunity, I commend the Viet Nam’s remarkable effort in initiating early essential newborn care interventions recently and believe that the country can make better progress if those interventions can be scaled up national wide, reaching to the most hard-to-reach maternal and newborn population”, said Youssouf Abdel-Jelil, UNICEF Representative in Viet Nam.
“We are now entering the era when all the world’s newborns should have the opportunity to see the 22nd Century. Unfortunately, nearly half of the children born this year likely won’t. With today’s life expectancy, a child born in Sweden in January 2018 is most likely to live to 2100, while a child from Viet Nam would be unlikely to live beyond 2095”, he concluded./.