Simple Steps Can Save Millions of Newborn Lives
13 September 2011
This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
The latest estimate is that more than three million babies die each year within the first month of life. A report says this is down from 4.6 million deaths in two thousand nine. Still, newborn babies represent about forty percent of all deaths in children under five years old.
Experts say five countries have the lowest survival rates: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, China and the Democratic Republic of Congo. India has one-fourth of all deaths within the first four weeks after birth.
A woman sits with her baby in an open area near a camp in Mogadishu, Somalia, earlier this summer.
The report is from the private humanitarian group Save the Children and the World Health Organization. Dr. Joy Lawn from Save the Children says simple actions can help save lives.
JOY LAWN: “Not delivering the baby onto a dirty surface, drying the baby, keeping the baby warm and feeding the baby straight away resulted in almost a halving of newborn deaths in very rural areas in India.”
Field studies show that these simple steps could prevent at least two-thirds of deaths in newborns each year. Dr. Lawn says having trained medical workers present would also save many babies and mothers.
JOY LAWN: "If you had the health workers with the right equipment and the right drugs in these settings, definitely maternal and neonatal deaths -- child deaths -- could be halved.”
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