Hihg Infant Mortality

By infant mortality we mean deaths of young children, basically those less than one year of age. It is measured by the infant mortality rate (IMR), which is the number of deaths of children under one year of age per 1000 live births.

Northern areas of India, especially areas with high ethnic minority

populations seem to have a persistent problem with high infant mortality. India’s capital, New Delhi, has a disturbingly high infant–mortality rate, according to a news report released by the NGO 'Save the Children'. The rate of 30 deaths per 1,000 births in Delhi compares unfavorably with cities like Mumbai (20) and Chennai (15).

In India, Early mortality is a particular concern. 64% of IMR died within the first 28 days of birth. As per the report of one of the leading news channel, most of the children died due to birth asphyxia - when a baby doesn't receive enough oxygen at birth. Other causes includes pre-maturity & low birth weight, neonatal infections (a blood infections that occurs in infants younger than 90 days.), birth trauma, pneumonia & diarrhoeal diseases.

Child mortality rates in India could be significantly reduced if community health workers visited new mothers regularly, a new study suggests.

The study, published in the British health journal the Lancet, aimed to find ways to reduce India’s child mortality rate.

Researchers followed health workers who visited rural and often remote homes after a child was born and encouraged women to access post-natal programs to learn about nutrition, vaccination schedules and breastfeeding. The study was conducted over three years from 2009 to 2012 and followed hundreds of pregnant women and new mothers in the eastern Indian states of Jharkhand and Orissa that report some of the country’s highest infant-mortality rates. The study’s authors tracked the progress of mothers up to six weeks after delivery.

Another report says that 'Family planning can reduce the growing infant mortality. As per this report, in countries where per-capita income is higher, infant mortality rates are substantially lower. High infant mortality is, therefore, clearly a function of poverty, which creates conditions—for example, the lack of clean water, poor sanitation, malnutrition, endemic infections, poor or nonexistent primary health care services and low levels of spending on health care—in which babies who are not robust at birth do not receive the health care they need to overcome their vulnerability.