New Year’s Babies: Over 392 children will be born in Kyrgyzstan on New Year’s Day - UNICEF

BISHKEK, 1 January 2020 – An estimated 392 babies will be born in Kyrgyzstan on New Year’s Day, UNICEF said today. The babies will account for 0,1 per cent of the estimated 392,078 babies to be born on New Year’s Day globally.

“The beginning of a new year and a new decade is an opportunity to reflect on our hopes and aspirations not only for our future, but the future of those who will come after us,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director. “As the calendar flips each January, we are reminded of all the possibility and potential of each child embarking on her or his life’s journey—if they are just given that chance.”

Fiji in the Pacific will most likely deliver 2020’s first baby. The United States, its last. Globally, over half of these births are estimated to take place in eight countries:

1. India — 67,385
2. China — 46,299
3. Nigeria — 26,039
4. Pakistan — 16,787
5. Indonesia — 13,020
6. The United States of America — 10,452
7. The Democratic Republic of Congo — 10,247
8. Ethiopia — 8,493

Each January, UNICEF celebrates babies born on New Year’s Day, an auspicious day for child birth around the world.

However, for millions of newborns around the world, the day of their birth is far less auspicious.

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.

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.

In Kyrgyzstan, despite major progress in reducing child mortality, the mortality rate among newborns remains high and accounts for more than half of the deaths among children under five. Every year, about 2,000 newborns do not live up to one month. Moreover, many babies die during the very first two days of their life.

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.

“Child mortality in Kyrgyzstan has reduced by more than two third since the 1990’s, which is a remarkable achievement”, said Christine Jaulmes, UNICEF Representative in Kyrgyzstan. “We have the means and ability to ensure safe deliveries and the survival of newborns.  Let us focus our efforts on the survival of newborns during the next decade. Only when every birth is safe and when every child survives, will we achieve the goals as set out in the Kyrgyz Republic Health Strategy 2019-2030: “A healthy people is a prosperous country”, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals agenda.”.

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Notes to Editors

For complete un-rounded estimates on births for 190 countries, click here.

For the data, UNICEF worked with the World Data Lab. The estimates for the number of babies born on 1 January 2020 draw on the latest revision of the UN’s World Population Prospects (2019). Building on these datasets, World Data Lab’s (WDL) algorithm projects estimates of the number of births for each day by country.

To download photos to accompany this story, click here.

For more information, please contact:
 

Sabrina Sidhu, UNICEF New York, +1 917 476 1537, ssidhu@unicef.org

Mavliuda Dzhaparova, UNICEF Kyrgyzstan, 0777919142, mdzhaparova@unicef.org