Approximately 8,370 babies are expected to be born in Bangladesh on New Year’s Day (January 1), UNICEF said today.
The new babies will account for 2.17 percent of the estimated 385,793 babies to be born globally on New Year’s Day.
According to the report, India will have 69,070 new faces on the same day while Pakistan 14,910.
“While many babies will survive, some will not make it past their first day”, the report said.
In 2016, an estimated 2,600 children died within the first 24 hours every day of the year. For almost two million newborns, their first week was also their last. In all, 2.6 million children died before the end of their first month.
Among the children, more than 80 percent 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 Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF representative in Bangladesh. He called on governments and development 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 died 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 percent of all deaths among children under five.
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, and skin-to-skin contact between the mother and child.
“We are now entering the era when the entire world’s newborns should have the opportunity to see the 22nd Century,” said Beigbeder.
