Premature births most common cause of death for children

Premature births are the leading cause of death for infants

17/11/2014

For the first time in history, premature births are the leading cause of death for infants. More than 3,000 children die every day around the world. Overall, however, infant mortality has fallen sharply internationally.

Premature births for the first time the leading cause of death
For the first time in history, premature birth and its consequences are the leading cause of death for infants. As the news agency dpa reports, scientists have determined in a study that more than every sixth child, who is less than five years old, dies from the complications and consequences of premature birth. More than 3,000 children die every day worldwide. On Monday, November 17, is the World Prematurity Day.

Most do not survive the first four weeks
Like the experts in the journal „The Lancet“ In nearly 1.1 million of the estimated 6.3 million infants who died in 2013, premature delivery was the cause of death. The majority of them (965,000) did not survive the first four weeks. The team around Robert Black of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (USA) writes that the consequences of premature birth more babies and children are killed than by pneumonia (935,000) and complications at birth (720,000).

Worldwide child mortality has fallen sharply
Co-author Joy Lawn of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said that this development requires new approaches to medicine and public health. „The successes in the ongoing fight against infectious diseases show that we can succeed if we invest in the care and provision of premature birth.“ In fact, worldwide child mortality has fallen sharply: in 2000, there were still 76 out of every 1,000 children born alive, compared to an average of 46 in 2013. Above all, this progress is due to vaccinations, better malaria protection, antibiotics and other measures against infectious diseases.

Causes of early births should be researched
Pre-term mortality was down only two percent during this period. In addition, the preemie rate is increasing worldwide. Already more than one in ten babies are born too soon. In the coming years, various research programs will determine why exactly babies are born too early and how this can be prevented. Risk factors include adiposity (obesity) and high blood pressure. But scientists also want to examine the influence of factors such as poverty, nutrition, stress, and pollution.

Numbers in Germany far above the world average
According to the report, infants die most every day in absolute terms in India with 361,600 premature births, followed by Nigeria (98,300), Pakistan (75,000), the Congo (40,600) and China (37,200). Macedonia is hit hardest in terms of percentage, with 51 percent of infancy deaths being the result of early birth. This is followed by Slovenia with 47.5 percent and Denmark with 43 percent. The worldwide average is 17.4 percent and in Germany, 29.1 percent of infant deaths are accounted for by premature births.

Nine percent of babies in Germany come too early
Nationwide, about nine percent of babies are born too soon. As the German Society for Pediatric Surgery announced last week in Berlin, always older mothers, twins or triplets after artificial insemination and diseases of affluence such as obesity, increase the risk. In Germany, there were about 63,000 premature births in 2013. Since the care of particularly preterm infants, who often find space in one's palm, needs a lot of experience and parents and gynecologists have little opportunity to see which hospitals are routinely in the treatment of very light babies, for many a new clinic atlas for easy Preemie beneficial. The internet portal, which started a few months ago, should help to find a suitable clinic. (Ad)