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It’s a general notion that a country with high birth rate vs. child mortality rate falls under the developing nations category. The simple reason for this are the factors underlying the cause of living standards, the access to healthy living, and good medication, that have a low accessibility rate in these countries. A study published in the Scandinavian Journal of History (vol. 6, 297-315, 1981, Ulla Britt Lithell) suggests, “Infant mortality is a variable that is often used as a measure of living standards. It has been argued in connection with studies of developing countries that infant mortality rate (IMR) ought to be complemented by an examination of child mortality, in general, above all in the 1-5 age group.”
Added to that is the fact that larger families cannot afford high standards of living and, as a result, such families had higher mortality rate. This could also explain why the older generations with larger families could offer lesser facilities and attention to all their children. With changing times, the trend has reversed with many such countries from the developing world showing a low child mortality rate with each family choosing to have one or two children. Watch the link for the informational video.
Source: www.wimp.com
As you can see, the rate of child mortality has reduced drastically in many countries where women are choosing to have one or two children. It has enabled parents to invest more time and resources in each child. And while most countries seemed to have reduced their child mortality rates by 1990, Ethiopia seemed to be stuck up for a long time until it began to come half way through in reducing the child mortality rate and is very soon on the way to catch up with rest of the world.
A report published by WHO in September 2014 confirms that the under-five mortality rates have dropped by 49% between 1990 and 2013. Although the annual reduction has paced up, even tripled in some countries, the overall progress has fallen short of meeting the set goal of a global two-thirds decrease in under-five mortality by 2015.
In yet another report as of 2013, about 6.3 million children under five died from mostly preventable causes. This figure was only lesser than that in 2012, but amounted to about 17000 deaths each day.
2.8 million babies died in 2013 within the first month of life. This figure represents about 44% of all under-five deaths. Of these, at least, two-thirds occurred in 10 countries.
Although neonatal deaths have declined, there is an urgent need to accelerate the progress towards reducing under-five mortality rate.
60 countries marked under ‘high mortality countries’, with at least 40 under-five deaths for every 1000 live births, have crossed the 67% reduction target. Ethiopia is now up by 69%. India and Nigeria together account for more than one-third of death among under-five children, India making for 21% and Nigeria making for 13% of these mortality rates.
Despite the fact that sub-Saharan Africa has shown a decline in the mortality rate by 48% since 1990, this region still scores the highest rate with 92 deaths per 1000 live births. This figure is supposed to be 15 times the average in high-income countries. Angola has the highest under-five mortality rate and makes for 84 times the likelihood of children under five to die than children born in Luxemburg, which has the lowest mortality rate.
Though these figures are still alarming, it is not entirely impossible to bring it down to zero, provided there are ‘proven and cost-effective’ inventions applied to save as many lives as possible. It’s important to improve the quality of neonatal and pediatric care as well. The common causes of neonatal mortality are pre-term birth complications amounting to 35% of the cases or complications during childbirth that makes for 24%. It requires health interventions to protect both the mother and child. There is a pressing need to invest more in health systems to deliver high-quality and affordable service to women and children.
Affordable and evidence-based immunizations, prevention against mosquitoes (insecticide-treated mosquito nets, for instance), rehydration treatment for diarrhoea, nutritional supplements and therapeutic foods are major determinants for improvement in child survival rate.
– Source for all statistical data – WHO
