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Saving Millions of Newborn Lives
"No investment in global health has a greater return than saving the life of a child."
— Melinda Gates as quoted in Save the Children's publication, State of the World's Mothers 2006.
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A mother rests next to her baby after delivery eight hours earlier. The nurse attending the birth was trained by Save the Children on how to provide a clean and safe delivery. |
Every year four million babies worldwide die in the first month of life. That’s the equivalent of the number of babies born in the United States each year. Nearly all of these babies die in developing countries from causes that can be prevented. Yet, almost all of the funding and research for newborn health focuses on high-tech solutions for the 1 percent of deaths that occur in affluent countries.
The good news. According to landmark research on newborn survival released March 3, 2005 in the British medical journal The Lancet — 3 million of the 4 million young lives could be saved with existing low-tech, low-cost measures. Examples of these measures include; providing tetanus immunizations for pregnant women, creating an a clean delivery, teaching exclusive breastfeeding and providing antibiotics for infections.
Save the Children is promoting and improving delivery of these measures to mothers and babies through our global initiative Saving Newborn Lives. The program, first funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000, has reached more than 20 million mothers and babies with critical health services in 12 countries, and contributed to saving the lives of millions of newborns.
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Bangladesh, a picture of the typical shed specially made for delivery where the mother and newborn are kept for the first 21 days of delivery. The mother is 15 years old, it is her first child. |
The Gates Foundation awarded a new grant at the end of last year, which will enable Save the Children to work in 20 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America to improve newborn health. Saving Newborn Lives now operates with partners in 20 countries (that collectively make up 65 percent of newborn deaths globally) to achieve neonatal mortality reduction through sustained high coverage of effective interventions. These include nine out of the 10 highest-mortality countries.
- Read the Executive Summary to find out the "Opportunities for Africa's Newborns"
- $60 million Gates Foundation grant awarded to save newborn lives
- Newly introduced legislation could save millions of children’s lives
- Visit www.thelancet.com to read articles on newborn survival
