New born babies on Jan 1 in a government hospital in Agartala

NEW DELHI: India welcomed an estimated 67,385 babies, the highest in the world, on 2020 on New Year ’s Day. It was followed by China (46,299), Nigeria (26,039), Pakistan (16,787), Indonesia (13,020) and the United States of America (10,452) among others.

According to the UNICEF, which released these projections on Wednesday, Indian babies were likely will account for 17 per cent of the estimated 392,078 babies to be born globally on New Year’s Day.

The UNICEF said Fiji in the Pacific will most likely deliver 2020’s first baby. The United States, its last. Each January, UNICEF, which is the United Nations agency responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children around the world, celebrates babies born on New Year ’s Day, an auspicious day for child birth around the world.

Several babies were born in the national capital region too, doctors said. “Some of them chose this day for delivery through caesarean section because they wanted their child to be born in a new year. Some felt its auspicious to welcome their bundle of joy in a new year,” said a doctor.

However, for millions of newborns around the world, the day of their birth is far less auspicious, said an official. In 2018, the UNICEF said in a statement, 2.5 million newborns died in just their first month of life; about a third of them on the first day of life.

Among those children, most died from preventable causes such as premature birth, complications during delivery, and infections like sepsis. In addition, more than 2.5 million babies are born dead each year, the UNICEF says.

Over the past three decades, the world has seen remarkable progress in child survival, cutting the number of children worldwide who die before their fifth birthday by more than half.

But there has been slower progress for newborns. Babies dying in the first month accounted for 47 per cent of all deaths among children under five in 2018, up from 40 per cent in 1990.

UNICEF’ is running campaign for mmediate investment in health workers with the right training, who are equipped with the right medicines to ensure every mother and newborn is cared for by a safe pair of hands to prevent and treat complications during pregnancy, delivery and birth.

“Too many mothers and newborns are not being cared for by a trained and equipped midwife or nurse, and the results are devastating,” Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director, said. She added: “We can ensure that millions of babies survive their first day and live into this decade and beyond if every one of them is born into a safe pair of hands.”

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In Video: On January 1, India welcomes 67,000 babies, world’s most