Ending Newborn Deaths (Save the Children, 2014)
Excerpts from Executive Summary:
The world has made remarkable progress in the fight to end child mortality in recent years. Since 1990, we have almost halved the number of children who die every year before the age of five – from 12.6 million to 6.6 million…
And yet, in spite of this progress, child mortality remains one of the great shames of our modern world. Every day, 18,000 children under five die, and most from preventable causes….[The] reduction in child mortality has been achieved through action on immunisation, family planning, nutrition and treatment of childhood illnesses, as well
as improving economies. However, far less attention has been paid to tackling the life-threatening dangers children face when they are newborn and most vulnerable – at birth and in their first month of life. …Save the Children is calling on world leaders, philanthropists and the private sector – this year – to commit to a Newborn Promise to end all preventable newborn deaths:• Governments and partners issue a defining and accountable declaration to end all preventable newborn mortality, saving 2 million newborn lives a year and stopping the 1.2 million stillbirths during labour• Governments, with partners, must ensure that by 2025 every birth is attended by trained and equipped health workers who can deliver essential newborn health interventions• Governments increase expenditure on health to at least the WHO minimum of US$60 per capita to pay for the training, equipping and support of health workers• Governments remove user fees for all maternal, newborn and child health services, including emergency obstetric care• The private sector, including pharmaceutical companies, should help address unmet needs by developing innovative solutions and increasing availability for the poorest to new and existing products for maternal, newborn and child health.
In 2014 Save the Children released a report describing the urgent need to prevent newborn mortality worldwide. Although child mortality has been cut in half over the past 25 years, most of that success has been achieved in toddlers and young children. According to the report, in 2012 almost 3 million newborns died of preventable causes in the first 28 days of life. Access to trained birth attendants and effectively training healthcare workers in basic neonatal survival interventions are two of the solutions Save the Children encourages policymakers to implement more fully.
