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STORY: UN / UNICEF NEWBORN DEATHS
TRT: 1.59
SOURCE: UNIFEED –UNTV / FILE
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH /NATS
DATELINE: 20 MAY 2014, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. External shot, UN Headquarters
20 MAY 2014, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press room
3. SOUNDBITE (English), Kim Eva Dickson, UNICEF’s senior advisor for maternal and newborn health:
“44 percent of child deaths are now newborn deaths. The post 2015 era for child survival will fail if it doesn’t address new deaths and yet only 4% of funding in child health mentions the word newborn.”
25 JULY 2013, MARIGOT, HAITI
4. Med shot, newborn on scale
5. Close up, feet of newborn baby
20 MAY 2014, NEW YORK CITY
6. SOUNDBITE (English), Kim Eva Dickson, UNICEF’s senior advisor for maternal and newborn health:
“If we were to focus on care at birth, care of women in labor, doing the right things for babies when they are born, keeping them warm, feeding them, and treating their complications, then 3 million lives – mothers, babies, and children could be saved. And this is at the running cost of one dollar and fifteen in higher burden countries.”
25 JULY 2013, MARIGOT, HAITI
7.Med shot, newborn with nurses cleaning baby
20 MAY 2014, NEW YORK CITY
8. SOUNDBITE (English), Professor Joy Lawn of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine:
“We had such dramatic reduction in child deaths and yet, the smallest and the tiniest and the most vulnerable have been left behind. Actually, the day of your birth is the riskiest day of your life.”
2 JUNE 2013, HEART, AFGHANISTAN
9. Various shots, newborns in intensive care at neonatal ward of hospital
20 MAY 2014, NEW YORK CITY
10. SOUNDBITE (English), Professor Joy Lawn of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine:
“We need more health workers, with skills – but skills to do what? Simple things like drying the baby when baby is born, wrapping the baby to keep the baby warm, initiation of breastfeeding, helping the mother to put the baby to the breast, cleaning the cord and keeping the cord clean. So we are not talking about high technology here. We are talking about simple things that we can do.”
11. Med shot, panel
A medical journal The Lancet has released a series of papers at the UNICEF Headquarters today showing that majority of nearly 3 million children who die before they turn one month old every year could be saved if they receive quality care around the time of birth.
New-born deaths account for a 44 per cent of total mortality among children under five, and represent a larger proportion of under-five deaths now than they did in 1990. These deaths tend to be among the poorest and most disadvantaged populations.
According to UNICEF, 2.9 million babies die each year within their first 28 days. An additional 2.6 million babies are still-born, and 1.2 million of those deaths occur when the baby’s heart stops during labour. The first 24 hours after birth are the most dangerous for both child and mother – almost half of maternal and new-born deaths occur then.
The Lancet’s Every Newborn Series identifies the most effective interventions in saving new-borns, including breastfeeding; new-born resuscitation; ‘kangaroo care’ for premature babies – that is, prolonged skin-to-skin contact with the mother; and preventing and treating infections. More funding and adequate equipment are also vital.
Countries that have made the most progress in saving new-born lives have paid specific attention to this group as part of the overall care extended to mothers and under-fives. Rwanda – alone among sub-Saharan African countries – halved the number of new-born deaths since 2000. Some low and middle-income countries are making remarkable progress by, among other methods; training midwifes and nurses to reach the poorest families with higher quality care at birth, especially for small or ill new-borns.
A survey of 51 countries with the highest burden of new-born deaths found that if the quality of care received by the richest were to become universal, there would be 600,000 fewer deaths per year – an almost 20 per cent reduction.
The highest numbers of new-born deaths per year are in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, with India (779,000), Nigeria (267,000) and Pakistan (202,400) leading. For the highest burden countries, every $1 invested in a mother’s or baby’s health gives a nine-fold return on investment in social and economic benefit.
Lancet’s Every Newborn Series is co-authored by experts from UNICEF, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the Agha Khan University, Pakistan, among others.
