US Gets Poor Grades for Newborn Survival

05/12/2006

US Gets Poor Grades for Newborn Survival

If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.
Andrew Carnegie

This week, Save the Children released its seventh annual State of the World's Mothers Report. This excellent report gives a thorough and impassioned analysis of the challenges facing mothers and newborn babies around the world. Some important findings:

The survival rate for newborn babies in the USA ranks near the bottom among modern nations, better only than Latvia. Among 33 industrialized nations, the United States is tied with Hungary, Malta, Poland, and Slovakia with a death rate of nearly 5 per 1,000 babies, according to a new report. Latvia’s rate is 6 per 1,000.
In the analysis of global infant mortality, Japan had the lowest newborn death rate — 1.8 per 1,000, and four countries tied for second place with 2 per 1,000 — the Czech Republic, Finland, Iceland, and Norway.
A number of relatively poor nations are doing an admirable job of improving health and saving the lives of mothers and babies. Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Vietnam are performing far better than other developing countries.
Still, it’s the impoverished nations that feel the full brunt of infant mortality, since they account for 99 percent of the 4 million annual deaths of babies in their first month. The highest rates globally were in Africa and South Asia. With a newborn death rate of 65 out of 1,000 live births, Liberia ranked the worst.

To find the full Save the Children report, go to:
http://www.savethechildren.org/

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