Infant Mortality Rate Goes Down By 60%

Although technology is leading to issues like sexting just as my previous post explains, we can also not ignore the benefits of advancement.

Experts feel that better technology and medical care has led to 60% decline in infant mortality rate. This means that now lesser babies die before their first birthdays. However, babies born to very young mothers remain at risk.

In the past three decades, the number of newborns who died within 28 days of birth has fallen by 60% while the number of babies who died between a month and one year has fallen by 68%.

This is a report on UK but the trend is the same for the developed nations. However, England and Wales still have the highest infant mortality rate in Europe and they are focusing on bringing the number down. For countries like Pakistan where survival is a miracle for all, we can hope God will guide us and give our kids better lives.

One child dies every minute in Pakistan

This is what I just read on Tribune. The report says that one child dies every minute from EPI (expanded program on immunisation diseases), diarrhea and acute respiratory infection (ARI). Moreover, 400,000 infants die in their first year, which indicates that we have a very depressing health situation in Pakistan.

One ought to give it serious attention, but I don’t think we have the resources. One among 10 children will die before reaching the age of 5 & one among 30 die immediately after they are born. This is incredibly depressing.

Pneumonia & air pollution are the 2 major factors affecting the health of children. Moreover, we don’t have proper child healthcare facilities as such in rural areas & naturally lack of such facilities makes it all the more worse. Maternal, newborn and child health care statistics in Pakistan are some of the poorest in South Asia.

Majority of children suffer from the respiratory ailments, cause they are most vulnerable thanks to their weakened malnutrition. You won’t be surprised to know that children are also suffering from hepatitis and their number is growing sharply. They also suffer from malarial diseases. Diarrhea is rampant, thanks to contaminated water in our country. It is estimated that about 20 per cent of diarrhea patients are children. Similarly, diseases like dysentery, scabies, dengue, goiter are also on the rise.

Infant mortality rate is pretty high in this country & this is quite a grim picture. Children are the future & so many don’t even survive.