India tops as around 70,000 babies take birth on the first day of 2019

Guwahati: The very first day of the year 2019 recorded the birth of around 70,000 babies in India only. This is shocking and amazing at the same time as most of the parents want their child to be born on the first day of the year. Hence, whether you name as coincidentally or pre-planned, almost 69,000 babies opened their eyes on January 1 in India.

To be quite precise, India witnessed the birth of 69,944 and amazingly, this is the highest in the world. This has been stated by UNICEF that the number of babies born in India on the first day of 2019 is the highest in the world.

India is followed by China with 44,940 babies born on January 1. Other nations to follow India and China are Nigeria with 25,685 babies, Pakistan 15,112 babies and Indonesia with 13,256 babies. India, in this tally of nations giving birth to babies on the first day of the year, certainly grabs the first position. However, India also takes a share of 18% of the estimated 3,95,072 babies that takes birth globally daily.

On the other hand, the first baby of the year 2019 took birth in Fiji and the last baby of the year 2018 was in the United States.

UNICEF representative in India, Dr. Yasmin Ali Haque said, “This New Year’s Day, we must resolve to save every child born from morbidity or mortality on account of complications during delivery or infections.” She further added that not every child can be saved after taking birth and many newborns die within a year and even a day of taking birth.

This is a matter to worry about that in the year 2017, around 1 million newborns in the world had died on the same day of taking birth and 2.5 million babies died within the first month of birth. Notably, India has shown improvements in its record of neonatal deaths over the last few years, but this has still been prevailing as a challenge and India must overcome this.

As suggested by the experts, the deaths of the newborns can be averted if certain simple measures are adopted. The experts have stressed on exclusive breastfeeding, skin-to-skin contact between the mother and the baby or father and the baby, use of clean equipment and adequate medicines and skilled health workers which will help in showing better results in neonatal deaths.

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