Numbers Aside, India’s Newborns Face Challenges

India

 Usha Kumar’s wails sounded like the cries of a wounded animal, guttural and wrenching, her screams seeping through the corridor of Kasturba Hospital in Delhi, until, finally, mercifully, Ms. Kumar pushed out her baby boy.

Indonesia’s infant mortality rate still high: UNICEF

Indonesia

UNICEF representative for Indonesia says Indonesia’s infant mortality rate is still high although it showed a downward trend in the past few years.

12 000 fewer children perish daily in 2010 than in 1990 – UNICEF, WHO

The number of children under five years of age dying each year declined from more than 12 million in 1990 to 7.6 million in 2010, UNICEF and WHO said today, releasing the latest estimates on worldwide child mortality.

Childbirth: Neonatal Deaths Slow, but U.S Still Lags

A study published in the August issue of PLoS Medicine reports that neonatal death rates in the United States have decreased over the period, but at a slower rate than in 117 other countries.

Children Five Times More Likely to Die in Countries Hit by Health Worker Crisis, Save the Children Finds

Chad, Somalia

A new index by Save the Children has ranked the best and worst countries for a child to fall sick in — with Chad and Somalia at the bottom and Switzerland and Finland at the top.  The bottom-ranked countries on the new index have extreme health worker shortages.

Neonatal Deaths haunt SA

South Africa

Neonatal care does not receive enough attention from the health sector, despite ongoing media coverage of infant mortality cases.

Newborn deaths put millennium development goal under threat

As more older children survive, slower progress in cutting death rates among babies in the first weeks of life is putting the goal of reducing child deaths by two-thirds in jeopardy

Global study finds newborns struggle to survive

Newborn survival is being left behind despite well-documented, cost-effective solutions to prevent these deaths.

Study shows newborn deaths higher in US than in Malaysia and Poland, on par with Qatar

Pediatrician Dr. Joy Lawn credits a quick-thinking midwife with saving her life when she was born in northern Uganda more than four decades ago.

S Asian Nations beat India on health indices

India

 India fares poorly in basic health indicators than its South Asian neighbors with the Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR) (per thousands live births) being 34 and Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) at 50.