New Delhi: Over three lakh babies in India don’t survive the first 24 hours of their life and the country tops the list of the ignominy, a report by an NGO claimed here today.
India tops the list of countries having the most first- day deaths of children and is ahead of Nigeria, Pakistan and China, the study by Save the Children said.
India accounts for 29 per cent of all first-day deaths globally. Every year a total of 3,09,000 babies die in the country on the first day of their birth, stated the report titled ‘State of the World’s Mothers’.
Nigeria has 89,700 deaths in this category, followed by Pakistan (59,800), China (50,600), Congo (48,400), Ethiopia (28,800), Bangladesh (28,100), Indonesia (23,400), Afghanistan (18,000) and Tanzania (17,000), it said.
The report said India also fares poorly in case of maternal risk to life.
In India one out of every 170 mothers face risk to their life, while in Nepal the risk is one in 190, it said.
The report also claimed 4,20,000 babies across South Asia die on their first day of life – almost one in every minute. It indicates that chronic malnourishment which leads to mental or physical impairment or ‘stunting’ is particularly severe in the region.
It said of the one million babies who die each year on the day they are born, almost 40 per cent of these are in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
