JOIN US The world’s first comprehensive analysis of stillbirth cases released in Geneva on Thursday showed India accounts for 6,05,230 stillbirth cases in 2009 – making it the worst place for a baby. India’s position has not improved since 1995.
It has been estimated that 66 per cent of some 1.8 million stillbirths ─occur in just 10 countries — India, Pakistan, Nigeria, China, Bangladesh, Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Afghanistan and Tanzania.
Close to 2.6 million stillbirths occurred worldwide in 2009, according to the estimates conducted by the World Health Organisation and published in a special issue of the journal Lancet.
Every day more than 7,200 babies are stillborn─ a death just when parents expect to welcome a new life and 98 per cent of them occur in low and middle-income countries.
The new estimates show that the number of stillbirths worldwide has declined by only one per cent per year, from 3 million in 1995 to 2.6 million in 2009. This is even slower than reductions for both maternal and child mortality in the same period.