Blog 12 Premature Deaths in Developing countries

Prematurity is the second most common cause of death for children under age five. Each year 15 million babies are born before 37 weeks of pregnancy, and rates are rising almost everywhere. An estimated 1.1 million premature babies die each year. Most are born just a few weeks early in developing countries, where they die from a lack of simple care. Child health experts from organizations including the World Health Organization, Save the Children and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine looked at what could be done in the 39 most developed countries if four recognized measures were implemented. These interventions are stopping smoking, promoting single pregnancies in IVF treatments, reducing planned Caesarean sections - which are often carried out before due dates. If all these were implemented, the researchers suggest premature birth could be prevented for 58,000 babies.  Research should also focus on preterm birth causes and solutions in low income countries where preterm birth rates are highest and the underlying causes may be much simpler to address.

Developing countries are a main target for this problem, often with the lack of resources to actually have a baby to the 37 week term. But, if simple steps like not smoking, and reducing Caesarean sections could be the difference between a healthy baby and an abnormal baby, why wouldn’t you agree to it? Being able to have a healthy baby should be every mother’s priority, because you lower risk for oncoming diseases and illnesses. Taking control of that situation would not only, help but it would increase the birth rates, and Japan would be a country that would benefit from that. Apart from that, developing countries need to not only, focus on having healthy baby, but healthy relationships as well. If developing countries also became aware of contraception’s and birth control methods that would limit how many children they would have, and they could focus on just having a small nuclear family. Instead of having to take care of many babies and children that often do not make it past 5 years old.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20342108

Alexa Florencio-Picazo
11/16/12