The number of infants with low birth weight is reduced according to a recent estimate, slower than hoped for. Thus, waves in 2015 approximately 20.5 million infants worldwide at birth less than 2500 grams. The almost 15 percent of live-born babies, report scientists from the world health organization, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Unicef in a study. In the year 2000, the rate was higher at 17.4 percent.
The birth weight of infants is regarded as an indicator for the General health of a population.
The WHO wants to reduce the number of underweight newborns from 2012 to 2025 to 30 percent. In order to achieve the target, would have to go back to the number of views of the weight critical births each year to 2.74 percent, the authors write in the journal The Lancet Global Health. So far, the annual rate of decline of only 1.23 percent.
Especially difficult is the Situation in South Asia. There is 26.4% of the newborns were in 2015, according to the estimate slightly, to the world. In the African countries South of the Sahara, it was 14 percent. Even among industrial countries, the differences are large. So only 2.4 percent in Sweden to easy on the world. In the United States, there are eight percent.
The authors of the report point out that it is precisely from these countries not so many reliable data is available: “The smallest newborn is often missing in the data systems, as well children who die shortly after birth.”
