About 74,000 newborns die every year due to lack of care and malnutrition. In this, 50 percent of the children died in 24 hours of birth. Also 25 percent of the first seven days and 25 percent of the deaths in 28 days of birth.
This information was presented in a report titled 'Prajnana Project', directed by ICDDRB and John Hopkins University. Experts say these newborns die due to birth-borne respiratory infection, infection and premature birth. According to them, to reduce the rate of infant mortality, mothers should be given nutritious food. Mother's breast milk should be fed to the child. It is possible to prevent the death of newborns as well as maternal care.
Although the rate of infant mortality decreases worldwide, the infant mortality rate has increased.
A UNICEF report says 15,000 children under the age of five die every day in the world. And according to the calculation of 2016, 46 percent of 52 million children died in one month. According to the report, if the child is not killed in this way, the number of newborns who died in the month of 2017 to 2030 will be 30 million.
Experts say the number of newborns in the country decreases, but it is very slow. They said that about 62 percent of the deaths of five-year-old children are the death of newborns. They have blamed three reasons for this death. These are birth-borne respiratory infections, infestation and underweight, that is, born before time.
According to the health department, the government has taken various programs to prevent maternal and infant deaths. These include women's pregnancy health screening at the grassroots level union health care centers. Nearly 3 thousand midwives will be recruited in 421 Upazila Health Complex and Union Health Care Center in the next year due to the death of mother and newborn.
In this context, Director of Health Department's Maternal, Newtonal, Child and Adolescent Health Project Dr. Md. Jahangir Alam Sarker said, "In our country about 20,000 newborn babies die each year of 20-month-old children. In the meantime, 50 percent of the deaths in 24 hours of birth. And to prevent the death of newborns, mothers should be brought in special services.
Save the Children Deputy Country Manager Ishtiaq Mannan told the media, "In MDGs we had to achieve the reduction in the death rate of children under the age of five, it was not fully realized. And the rate of death of a five-year-old child is decreasing, the rate of infant mortality is not decreasing at the rate. In Bangladesh, 28 people are killed in contrast to every 1000 newborns. But our goal is to bring the death rate to 12 points by 2030.
In this context, Iffat Ara Shamsad, associate professor of the Department of Children's Department of Dhaka Medical College Hospital, said, "If mother is breast-fed immediately after birth, then it is possible to prevent the death of 31 percent of newborns." If the child is fed breast milk to six months after birth, then the 5-year-old child's death rate will be reduced to 13 percent.