Goal 4 of 8: Reduce Child Mortality - Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate
Goal 5 of 8: Improve Maternal Health - Reduce by three-quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio
QUICK FACTS: CHILD MORTALITY
WHO:
Who is directly affected by child mortality in significant numbers?
1 out of every 10 children dies before the age of five in low-income countries. By contrast in wealthier nations, this number is only 1 out of 143
WHAT:
What are the causes of child mortality
Undernutrition is an underlying cause of 53% of all deaths in children aged younger than 5 years Worldwide more than 70% of the 10.6 million child deaths that occur
annually are attributable to six causes: pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, neonatal sepsis, preterm delivery, and asphyxia at birth
The health and survival of mothers is intimately linked to the survival of their children
WHERE:
Where has child mortality directly affected the most people?
Most significantly among deaths in children, 42% occur in the WHO (World Health Organization) Africa region, and an additional 29% occur in the south-east Asia region
HOW:
How is child mortality and maternal health related to poverty?
Poverty it is the single most important determinant of childhood death
Childhood mortality is strongly inversely correlated with per-capita health expenditure
WHY:
Why the campaigns to end child mortality and improve maternal health are important?
By seizing the opportunity to reach the Millennium Development Goal, 30 million young lives could be saved in the decade ahead, ten million through immunization alone
-In 2006, 9.7 million children died worldwide before their fifth birthdays, mostly from preventable causes such as malnutrition.
-Although the under-5 mortality rate in the United States has fallen in recent decades, it is still higher than many other wealthy nations – 2.3 times that of Iceland and more than 75 percent higher than the rate of the Czech Republic, Finland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Slovenia and Sweden.
-The causes of child deaths in the industrialized world differ dramatically from those in developing countries. In the developing world, over half of under-5 deaths are caused by pneumonia, diarrhea or newborn conditions. In the industrialized world, these problems rarely lead to death. Children’s deaths are most likely the result of injury suffered in traffic accidents, intentional harm, drowning, falling, fire and poisoning.
-Throughout the industrialized world, children from poor or disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to be injured or killed. Factors such as single parenthood, low levels of maternal education, teenage motherhood, substandard housing, large family size and parental drug or alcohol abuse increase the risks that a child will not survive to age 5.
-Children are far more likely to die during the first year of life than they are at older ages. And death rates for males are substantially higher than rates for females for every age group of children.
-In the United States, American-Indian, Alaska- Native and African-American children have the highest death rates.
-Every year almost 11 million children in developing countries die before the age of five
-About 29,000 children under the age of five – 21 each minute – die every day, mainly from preventable causes.
Here are some additional facts about child mortality in the industrialized world:
Only about 1 percent of the 10 million under-5 deaths every year occur in wealthy countries.
Iceland has the world’s lowest child mortality rate (3 per 1,000 live births).
Romania has the highest child mortality rate in the more developed world (19 per 1,000 live births).
Out of 44 more developed countries, the United States is tied for 26th place with Croatia, Estonia and Poland. In all three countries there are 7 child deaths per 1,000 live births.
There are 14 countries with higher under-5 mortality rates than the United States. They are: Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Serbia and Montenegro, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Ukraine, Macedonia, Russia, Albania and Romania.
Within the United States, Connecticut has the lowest child death rate (19.6 deaths among children ages 1 to 4 per 100,000 children) and Wyoming has the highest rate (53.7 deaths per 100,000 children).
In the United States, between 1980 and 2003, death rates dropped by 46 percent for infants and 51 percent for children ages 1 to 4.
American-Indian children ages 1 to 4 have the highest death rates (49 per 100,000), followed by African-American children (46 per 100,000), Hispanic children (29 per 100,000), non-Hispanic white children (28 per 100,000) and Asian/Pacific Islander children (23 per 100,000). Among wealthy nations, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Italy and the Netherlands have the lowest rates of child deaths due to injury. In the United States and Portugal, the rates of child injury death are twice as high.
One in 71 mothers in the United States is likely to lose a child before his or her fifth birthday. A mother in the United States has a 2.5 fold greater risk of experiencing the death of a child than a mother in Iceland, Italy or Japan and is almost 3 times more likely to lose a child than a mother in the Czech Republic or Slovakia.
Whereas only 1 child in 100,000 in the United States dies of pneumonia each year, roughly 1 in 15 children in Angola, Afghanistan, Niger and Sierra Leon die of pneumonia each year. Children in these countries are 6,700 times more likely to die of pneumonia than children in the United States.
More than 16,500 lives could be saved each year in the United States alone if our under-5 mortality rate was the same as Iceland. If the U.S. rate of under-5 mortality was similar to that of France, Germany and Italy (all 4 per 1,000 live births), over 12,000 child lives could be spared.
In the eastern countries of Europe, social inequalities are increasing and the AIDS epidemic is growing rapidly, putting more children at risk of death.
At least 20% of the burden of disease in children below the age of 5 is related to poor maternal health and nutrition, as well as quality of care at delivery and during the newborn period. And yearly 8 million babies die before or during delivery or in the first week of life. Further, many children are tragically left motherless each year. These children are 10 times more likely to die within two years of their mothers' death
Maternal Health
Each and Every Day...
1,600 women die needlessly during pregnancy and childbirth:
Many are undernourished before and during their pregnancy
These women often lack information and appropriate voluntary services for family planning and post-abortion care
Many women lack information and services during their pregnancy and receive inadequate health care before, during, and after delivery
Women continue to die at the rate of one every minute of every day due to preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth
A woman's death during childbirth often means death for her newborn
Every minute one woman dies from complications associated with pregnancy and childbirth.
99 per cent of these deaths occur in the developing world where most women are limited by illiteracy, poor education and poverty.
Half of all births in developing countries take place without the help of a skilled birth attendant.
A child whose mother dies during childbirth is 3-10 times more likely to die before his or her second birthday.
Spacing births two or more years apart significantly reduces the risk of maternal and newborn death.
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