India has topped the list of countries reporting the highest number of deaths of children aged under 5 years due to pre-term birth complications.
Up to 3.6 lakh children die due to pre-term birth complications every year in India, says a study released by The Lancet, a medical journal, last week. The study analysed child mortality data from 166 countries across the world for 13 years.
A baby that is born or has to be delivered before completing a term of nine months in the mother's womb is called a pre-term baby. "Babies that are born from between 6.5 months till anywhere up to 8.5 months are pre-term.
They have extremely low birth weight. While normal birth weight is 2.5 kilos, pre-term babies weigh between 500 grams to 1.2 kilos," said Dr Vinit Samdani, consulting paediatrician at Breach Candy and Jaslok Hospitals in South Mumbai.
Sixty-three lakh children under the age of five were estimated to have died across the world, of which 11 lakh died pre-term. The study thus shows that 3,000 children die every day as a result of being born pre-maturely. India constituted up to 32% of these global child deaths.
While the millenium development goals (MDGs) set by the UN for 15 years expire in less than 500 days now, the goal of childhood mortality, which was to be reduced to 42 children dying per 1,000 live births globally, has not been achieved. Since 2000, the worldwide mortality rate of children under 5 years has declined dramatically from 76 to 46 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2013.
However, India is way over the average. In India, 52 out of every 1,000 children under the age of five die due to multiple illnesses.
According to Lancet study, India is ahead of South Asia as well as Africa. It also supersedes China. While 37,200 babies died in China under the age of five, India's count goes into lakhs. In Nigeria that comes a distant second, 98,300 children died last year, while in Pakistan, 75,000 children died.
While in Mumbai, pre-term babies can be saved if neo-natal intensive care is provided on time, in rural areas, that option does not exist. The timely transfer of a premature baby into the NICU is vital, say doctors. However, the city faces a gross dearth of NICU beds. While for a population of 1.2 crore at least 10,000 NICU beds are required, only one tenth of the bed capacity currently exists.
"On counting the number of NICU beds in 13 leading private and 4 leading public hospitals of Mumbai that are capable of handling delicate neonatal cases, only 315 NICU beds are available," said Dr Nandkishor Kabra, paediatrician at Surya Child Care Hospital in Santacruz.
Countries with the highest numbers of children under 5 yrs dying from pre-term birth complications each year are:
India: 361,600
Nigeria: 98,300
Pakistan: 75,000
Democratic Republic of the Congo: 40,600
China: 37,200
Bangladesh: 26,100
Indonesia: 25,800
Ethiopia: 24,400
Angola: 15,900
Kenya: 13,300
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