On New Year’s Day, most number of babies were born in India; China distant second

New York, Jan 3: India is still the second largest populous country in the world trailing China. However, the former beat the latter by some distance when it came to the number of babies that were born on the New Year's Day this year.

According to the Unicef (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund), nearly 4 lakh babies were born around the world on January 1 and a quarter of them took birth in South Asia. India led the list as the country with the most number of baby births (69,944) on the first day of the year, the Unicef said, while China saw 44,940 births. The next six countries that followed are: Nigeria (25,685), Pakistan (15,112), Indonesia (13,256), USA (11,086), Democratic Republic of Congo (10,053) and Bangladesh (8,428). In terms of cities, Beijing saw birth of 605 babies on New Year's Day while London 343 and New York 317.

However, not many of these babies were destined to survive their first day or the first month. In 2017, about a million babies died the day they were born while 2.5 millions failed to see the second month in their lives. "Among those children, most died from preventable causes such as premature birth, complications during delivery, and infections like sepsis and pneumonia, a violation of their basic right to survival," the Unicef report added.

There is hence a need to prioritise the newborns' basic right to survival. "This New Year Day, let's all make a resolution to fulfill every right of every child, starting with the right to survive," said Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, Unicef Deputy Executive Director. "We can save millions of babies if we invest in training and equipping local health workers so that every newborn is born into a safe pair of hands."

The year 2019 also saw the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child which the international body will observe across the world by holding events throughout the year. Nations committed themselves under the convention to adopting measures to save every child by providing them with quality health care.