In Bangladesh, UNICEF is building Special Care New Born Units (SCANU) in local hospitals, to supply aid to newborns and infants – especially those who are in need of emergency intervention.
Mobile health teams, funded by Global Affairs Canada, are helping to ensure that children receive polio vaccinations, while also providing basic health services in hard-to-reach areas of Nigeria.
In 2019, over 395,000 babies will be born around the world on New Year’s Day. Their future, like this new year, is full of possibility. These babies deserve the best start in life. It is their right. But too many babies will not survive their first year, or even their first month.
Of all the babies born every year, 30 million newborns will need specialized and intensive care due to reasons like premature birth and low birthweight. Thanks to timely neonatal care, Baby Nahawa from Mali beat all odds to survive.
The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative has the power to create systems change, inform professional practice and enrich personal values and ethics and strengthen commitment to improve women’s and children’s health and the well being of families. It enables mothers to achieve their personal goals regarding infant feeding.
In Kasai Province, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 2.3 million children are in urgent need of humanitarian aid. More than 400,000 children suffer from severe malnutrition and are at risk of dying. These children have witnessed or are victims of extreme violence and thousands of them have been forced to join armed militia groups. Those who have managed to escape are now attempting to piece together some semblance of a normal life.
Vaccines protect children against disease and death, saving up to three million lives a year. Despite the benefits, millions of young children around the world are missing out. UNICEF envisions a world where no child dies from a preventable cause and all children reach their full potential. That is why UNICEF is on the ground in 190 countries, immunizing millions of children every year.
Babies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo can wait months for HIV results, but new technology can give a result the same day, speeding up treatment, and saving lives.
Although the world has made dramatic progress in reducing global rates of under-five child mortality, newborn deaths have declined at a slower pace. Find out what UNICEF is doing to help children survive.
