The safest place to be born on earth is Japan according to a new UNICEF report launched on Tuesday. Babies born in Japan stand the best chance of surviving while those born in Pakistan faced the highest risk of death.
“Japan, Iceland and Singapore are the three safest countries in which to be born, as measured by their newborn mortality rates,” the report, called “Every Child Alive,” said.
“Babies born in Japan stand the best chance of surviving,” it said, reporting a 1 in 1,111 risk of death for newborns in the country, followed by Iceland with a 1 in 1,000 risk and Singapore at 1 in 909.
On the other hand, it reported that “children born in Pakistan face the worst odds” with a 1 in 22 chance of death.
According to the 33-page report, the risk of dying as a newborn varies widely with the location of birth. Annually, some 2.6 million babies die before turning a month old, with roughly one million of them dying on the day of birth. An additional 2.6 million babies each year are stillborn.
Eight of the 10 countries with the highest newborn mortality rates are in sub-Saharan Africa. Following Pakistan, the Central African Republic and Afghanistan are the second and third most risky places to be born, respectively.
“Most of all, newborns die because they are poor,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF’s executive director in New York. “Babies born to the poorest families are more than 40 percent more likely to die in the newborn period than the babies in the richest families.”
Despite the fact that roughly 7,000 newborn babies die every day — with more than 80 percent of the deaths preventable with “basic solutions” such as affordable health care and well-trained medical staff — Fore pointed to improvements made in countries such as Bangladesh, where the mortality rate has fallen by more than two-thirds.
