News: UN Inter-agency group for child mortality estimation has released a report titled “ A neglected tragedy: The global burden of stillbirths 2020”.
Facts:
Stillbirth: It means a baby born with no signs of life at 28 weeks of pregnancy or more.
Aim of the report: It aims to present the number of babies that are stillborn every year due to pregnancy and birth-related complications, the absence of health workers and basic services.
Key Takeaways:
- One stillbirth occurs every 16 seconds which means that about 2 million babies are stillborn every year.
- Around 0.34 million of the 1.9 million stillbirths globally in 2019 were in India making it the country with the largest such burden.
- India along with five other countries — Pakistan, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, China and Ethiopia — accounted for nearly half of all stillbirths in the world.
