CB BureauNearly half of all child deaths in India are caused due to
premature births, making it the second leading cause in the country, claims a
report by international NGO Save the Children. The number one cause is
pneumonia.
The report, ‘Born Too Soon: The Global Action Report on
Preterm Birth’, informs that India has the highest number of children dying of
preterm births – defined as birth within less than 37 weeks of pregnancy. To
quote UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who wrote the foreword to the report,
“All newborns are vulnerable but preterm babies are acutely so.â€
Of the 27 million babies born in India annually (2010
figure), nearly 3.6 million are born prematurely, of which 303,600 do not
survive due to complications. According to the report, India is among the top
10 countries that account for 60 per cent of the world’s preterm births. In
terms of preterm birth rates – the number of children born prematurely per
1,000 live births – India ranks 36. The ranking includes 199 countries.
Save the Children India CEO Thomas Chandy said factors such
as early marriage, inadequate nutritional intake by pregnant women, and lack of
adequate health interventions are the reasons that contribute to preterm
births. Preterm risk factors include a prior history of pre-term birth,
underweight, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, smoking, infection, maternal age
(either under 17 or over 40), genetics, multi-foetal pregnancy (twins,
triplets, and higher), and pregnancies spaced too closely.
The report proposes that India can reduce deaths by 50 per
cent through better management of neonatal infections, improved thermal care,
feeding support, and scaling up Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC). In KMC, the
premature baby is put in early, prolonged, and continuous direct skin-to-skin
contact with the mother or a family member to provide stable warmth and
encourage frequent breastfeeding.
Worldwide, 15 million babies are born too soon every year
and 1.1 million of those babies die shortly after birth, making premature birth
the second leading cause of death in children under age 5. As per the report, of
the 11 countries with preterm birth rates over 15 per cent, all but two are in
sub-Saharan Africa. Preterm births account for 11.1 per cent of the world’s
live births, 60 per cent of them in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Countries with the greatest numbers of preterm births
1. India — 3,519,100
2. China — 1,172,300
3. Nigeria — 773,600
4. Pakistan — 748,100
5. Indonesia — 675,700
6. United States — 517,400
7. Bangladesh — 424,100
8. Philippines — 348,900
9. Democratic Republic of the Congo — 341,400
10. Brazil — 279,300