Home | UNICEF in Action | Highlights | Information Resources | Donations, Greeting Cards & Gifts | Press Centre | Voices of Youth | About UNICEF

World makes little progress on low birthweight

The agency's Executive Director Carol Bellamy stated that little progress has been made on decreasing these risks over the past decade and said new partnerships in the future are needed to help remedy a problem that continues to impact millions of poor children and their families.

This assessment followed a two-day technical consultation sponsored by UNICEF, the World Bank and the United States' Department of Agriculture (USDA). Over twenty million babies born alive each year -- mostly in developing countries -- weigh less than 2.5 kilograms.

"This figure is unacceptable," Ms. Bellamy said. "In 1990, Heads of State and Government at the World Summit for Children identified low birthweight as a priority over the next decade. The Summit set a goal of reducing low birthweight to 10 per cent or less by the year 2000 and we are far from reaching it."

Among the most common causes of low birthweight are teenage pregnancy, inadequate nutrition before and during pregnancy, increased workload during pregnancy and smoking, Ms. Bellamy added. Around 70 per cent of babies with low birthweight are born in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Eduardo Doryan, Vice President of the World Bank and head of the Bank's Human Development Network, told the meeting that poverty reduction strategies are essential to addressing the problem of low birthweight. He expressed hope that confronting poverty itself would be at the heart of coming efforts.

"This consultation gives us the opportunity of really moving forward," Ms. Bellamy stated. "UNICEF sees raising the birthweight of new-borns as a key component of our strategy for early childhood development. We are committed to engaging ourselves even more in activities in this crucial area."

Eileen Kennedy, Deputy Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics at USDA said the meeting provided an important opportunity for UNICEF, the World Bank and USDA to collaborate in order to move this important agenda forward.

A two-day gathering of researchers, programmers and UN leaders in New York looked at constraints to progress on the issue of low birthweight and at research and programming needs in the short and longer term to address the problem.

The group agreed that one key area of focus would be to improve the nutritional status of adolescent girls and of pregnant women. Another key intervention would be to ensure that all births are registered and that babies are weighed at birth, to help society as a whole to be more aware of the scope and severity of the problem.

Home| UNICEF in Action | Highlights | Information Resources | Donations, Greeting Cards & Gifts | Press Centre | Voices of Youth | About UNICEF