WHO: India Likely To Achieve SDG Goals For Reduction In Newborn Deaths

A top WHO official said India, which has taken proactive steps to reduce neonatal mortality, is likely to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal targets in this key area by 2030, citing data on the annual rate of reduction for newborn deaths in the country between 2016 and 2021.

Director, of the Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing at the World Health Organisation, Geneva, Dr Anshu Banerjee said to PTI, “India has taken important steps to improve the quality of care during labor and childbirth, leading to reductions in maternal deaths. This will also bring better outcomes for newborns”.

Dr. Banerjee said, “If we use the annual rate of reduction for newborn deaths between 2016–2021 and apply it to 2022–2030, it is likely that India will be able to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal targets”. Last week, Dr. Banerjee attended the ‘International Maternal Newborn Health Conference’ (IMNHC 2023).

Dr. Banerjee further said, “India has been proactive in taking action to accelerate neonatal mortality reductions, including strengthening policy and planning for newborn health”.

Dr. Banerjee said that complications relating to premature births are now the leading cause of under-five child deaths globally, and as such, it is one of the most pressing issues for child survival, on being asked about the learnings from the ‘Born too soon: decade of action on preterm birth’ report by the WHO, UNICEF and PMNCH — the world’s largest alliance for women, children, and adolescents, which was launched last week.

Preterm birth occurs when a baby is born before 37 weeks of pregnancy.

Dr. Banerjee said, “We simply can’t achieve global newborn health and survival targets without moving on this big issue. And yet, there has been very little progress in reducing rates of preterm births globally over the last decade”.

He stressed, “There is now no excuse for inaction – we have so many solutions and innovations that we didn’t have a decade ago. What we need is a big focus on investment and implementation for both prevention of preterm birth – in particular, this means ensuring high-quality care during pregnancy for every woman, including early ultrasound – and better care for small and sick newborns and their families”.

“The WHO will introduce new tools for nations next week to encourage the wider implementation of kangaroo mother care, a lifesaving approach that involves both skin-to-skin contacts between a mother and a baby and exclusive nursing”, Dr. Banerjee continued.

This should be available to preterm newborns everywhere to give them the best possible chance of survival.

Dr. Banerjee stated that while the problem of undernutrition in women and children continues to be a major contributor to sickness and mortality throughout the world, rising rates of obesity are contributing to increases in non-communicable diseases.

This means that health programmes and healthcare workers must scale up efforts to treat both ends of the continuum at the same time as well as screen for and manage both undernutrition and obesity, he said.

This can be a daunting task, but we are discovering that there are doable double-duty actions that are important to reduce both undernutrition and obesity. Protection and support of continuous breastfeeding, for example, through maternity protections, promotes healthier child growth and protects against the later development of obesity.

“Providing supplemental food products that are highly nutritious without containing unhealthy fats and sugars can also be a double-duty action”, he added.

According to Dr. Banerjee, India does not have to look far for best practices that India can adopt from other countries to improve maternal and newborn health.

There has been some success in India; for example, the state of Kerala has a maternal death rate of 19 per 100,000 live births, closely followed by a few other states.

India has launched various IT initiatives to leverage digital platforms to support the provision of health services to pregnant women and children. Several states are utilizing cutting-edge mobile technology to support health status monitoring and response.

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