Og problemet er stort, for hvert år fødes 15 millioner børn for tidligt, de fleste i u-landene, og det fører ofte til store problemer i tilværelsen, hvis børnene overhovedet overlever de første svære år med mulig manglende omsorg, underernæring og fattigdom.
NEW YORK, 2 May 2012: Some 15 million babies worldwide – more than one in ten births – are born too early, according to a new United Nations-backed report, released Wednesday, which calls for steps such as ensuring the requisite (nødvendige) medicines and equipment and training health staff to promote child survival.
“All newborns are vulnerable, but preterm babies are acutely so,” says UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who wrote the foreword to the report, entitled “Born Too Soon: The Global Action Report on Preterm Birth”.
The report points out that more than one million preterm babies die shortly after birth, while countless others suffer some type of lifelong physical, neurological, or educational disability (handicaps), often at great cost to families and society.
It adds that an estimated three quarters of the preterm babies who die could survive without expensive care if a few proven and inexpensive treatments and preventions (forbyggelsesmetoder) were available worldwide.
“Being born too soon is an unrecognized killer,” says the co-editor of the report and Director of Global Evidence and Policy for Save the Children, Joy Lawn.
“Preterm births account for almost half of all newborn deaths worldwide and are now the second leading cause of death in children under five, after pneumonia (lungebetændelse),” added she.
The report was produced by The March of Dimes Foundation, The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, Save the Children and the World Health Organization (WHO), with contributions from over 100 experts, representing almost 40 UN agencies, universities and organizations.
It contains new figures showing the magnitude of the problem and the disparities (forskelle) between countries. Of the 11 countries with preterm birth rates over 15 per cent, all but two are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Preterm births account for 11,1 per cent of the world’s live births, 60 per cent of them in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In the poorest countries, on average, 12 per cent of babies are born too soon, compared to nine per cent in higher-income countries.
The problem of preterm births is not confined to low-income countries, according to the report. The United States and Brazil both rank among the top ten countries with the highest number of preterm births. In the US, for example, about 12 per cent – or more than one in nine of all births – are preterm.
The countries with the greatest numbers of preterm births are:
India (3.519.100)
China (1.172.300)
Nigeria (773.600)
Pakistan (748.100)
Indonesia (675.700)
USA (517.400)
Bangladesh (424.100)
Philippines (348.900),
DR Congo (341.400)
Brazil (279.300).
Those with the lowest rates of preterm births include Belarus (Hviderusland), Ecuador, Latvia (Letland), Finland, Croatia, and Samoa.
Læs videre på
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=41906&Cr=birth&Cr1=
Begynd fra: “In high-income countries, the increases in the number…”
Her findes også link til selve rapporten.
