As the world erupted in celebrating a brand new year, India welcomed an estimated 67,385 babies, the highest in the world on New Year’s Day, 2020.
Following India were China with 46,299 babies, Nigeria with 26,039, Pakistan with 16,787, Indonesia with 13,020 and the United States of America with 10,452 babies.
According to official data by the UNICEF, who released these statistics Wednesday, Indian newborns will account for 17 per cent of the estimated 392,078 babies to be born globally on New Year’s Day 2020. According to UNICEF, the tiny Pacific country of Fiji most likely delivered the new year’s first baby and the United States its last.
Every year in January UNICEF, which is the main agency of the United Nations that is responsible for providing developmental and humanitarian aid to children around the globe, celebrates babies born on New Year’s Day, an auspicious day for child birth around the world.
In 2018, 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.
UNICEF said 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’s Every Child Alive campaign calls for immediate 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,” said Fore. “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.”
India is projected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country around 2027. According to UN estimates, India is expected to add nearly 273 million people between 2019 and 2050, while the population of Nigeria is projected to grow by 200 million. Together, these two countries could account for 23 per cent of the global population increase to 2050.
China, with 1.43 billion people in 2019, and India, with 1.37 billion, have long been the two most populous countries of the world, comprising 19 and 18 per cent, respectively, of the global total in 2019. Through the end of the century, India is estimated to remain the world’s most populous country with nearly 1.5 billion inhabitants, followed by China with just under 1.1 billion, Nigeria with 733 million, the US with 434 million, and Pakistan with 403 million inhabitants.
PNN/Agencies
