Bangladesh will see the birth of some 8,093 babies on the very first day of the New Year, 2020, says Unicef.
It will be 2.06% of the total number of babies — 392,078 — expected to be born around the world on New Year’s Day, according to a press release issued by the UN agency on Tuesday.
Globally, over half of these births are estimated to take place in eight countries — India, China, Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia, the US, Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia.
Unicef has predicted that Fiji will most likely deliver the first baby of 2020 and the US its last.
Unicef Executive Director Henrietta Fore said: “The beginning of a new year and a new decade is an opportunity to reflect on our hopes and aspirations not only for our future, but the future of those who will come after us.”
“As the calendar flips each January, we are reminded of all the possibility and potential of each child embarking on her or his life’s journey — if they are just given that chance,” she added.
Unicef says the world has seen remarkable progress in child survival over the past three decades, cutting the number of children worldwide who die before their fifth birthday by more than half.
But there has been slower progress for newborns. Babies dying in the first month accounted for 47% of all deaths among children under the age of five in 2018, up from 40% in 1990, it added.
The press release said that 2.5 million newborns died in just their first month — about a third of them on the day of their birth — in 2018.
Among those children, most died from preventable causes such as premature birth, complications during delivery and infections like sepsis. In addition, more than 2.5 million babies are born dead each year.
Unicef has urged world leaders and nations to invest in health workers with know-how and equipment to save every newborn in 2020.
“Too many mothers and newborns are not being cared for by a trained and equipped midwife or nurse, and the results are devastating,” said Fore.
“We can ensure that millions of babies survive their first day and live into this decade and beyond if every one of them is born into a safe pair of hands,” she added.
