EVERY DAY, 6,000 NEWBORN BABIES DIE. THE MAJORITY OF THESE DEATHS ARE AVOIDABLE.
2025 has been one of the hardest years in recent memory for children. Wars have torn families apart. Climate disasters have destroyed entire communities. Crippling hunger and disease have stolen childhoods. And millions of mothers and babies have been caught in the chaos.
Yet even in the chaos of war, disaster and hunger, life finds a way.
Babies have been born in war zones, refugee camps, and communities devastated by floods and droughts. They've taken their first breaths in tents, on the move, or in overcrowded, under-equipped hospitals.
They’ve spent their first months of life fighting preventable illnesses like malnutrition, pneumonia, and malaria. Mothers have given birth without electricity, clean water or medicine - often while fleeing violence or rebuilding after a climate disaster.
Almost one in three (32%) stillbirths in 2023 took place in low-income countries, and nearly 80% occurred in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia.
If current trends continue, 13 million more babies will be stillborn by 2030, with half of these deaths in sub-Saharan Africa and nearly a third in Southern Asia.
Every baby deserves more than survival. They deserve to be safe, fed, and loved. They deserve a chance to grow, to laugh, to learn. They deserve a future.
The crisis in numbers
2.4 million
newborn deaths per year.
Every 2 minutes
a woman dies from complications in pregnancy or childbirth.
Every 36 seconds
a baby is stillborn.
95%
of maternal deaths occur in low and middle-income countries
The majority of these deaths are avoidable. With the right care and support, many of these lives could be saved.
The risk is highest in places of poverty and crisis. In conflict zones, refugee camps and disaster-hit areas, babies are being born without the care they need to survive.
- A child born in sub-Saharan Africa is 18 times more likely to die before the age of five than one born in Australia or New Zealand.
- Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 46 per cent of the world’s neonatal deaths, and Southern Asia accounted for another 35 percent.
Since 2000, the global under-five mortality rate has fallen by 52 per cent, reflecting decades of investment and collaboration by governments, communities and partners.
But for the first time in over 25 years, the number of children dying before their fifth birthday is predicted to stop falling and potentially rise by 2037 , driven by climate change, intensifying conflict and cuts to foreign aid.
Farhiya, outside the hospital where she works as Head of the Maternity Department Mustafa Saeed / Save the Children
We receive all kinds of mothers and provide them with a variety of support and services at no cost.
Mothers no longer have worries; there are no complications like those that occur during home deliveries at the Mother and Child Health Centre.
WITH SKILLED MIDWIVES, MEDICINE, CLEAN WATER AND SAFE PLACES TO GIVE BIRTH, MOTHERS AND BABIES CAN SURVIVE.
The world has made incredible progress in children’s health, nutrition and education over recent decades, with child mortality falling significantly.
Countries like Bangladesh, Kenya and Rwanda have made huge progress in newborn and maternal health over the last few decades, significantly reducing preventable deaths. We know there are solutions that have been proven to work.
The first hours, days and months of life shape everything. It’s when love, safety, and nourishment lay the foundations for a child’s future. Poor nutrition alone can cause irreversible damage to a baby’s growing brain, and lead to a lifetime of health problems.
Every baby deserves more than survival. They deserve to be safe, fed, and loved. They deserve a chance to grow, to laugh, to learn. They deserve a future.
5-months pregnant Tisha* attends a check-up with Nargis, a midwife at a satellite clinic run by Save the Children's Mamota project to support Char communities in Gaibandha, Bangladesh. Fatima Tuj Johora / Save the Children
5 innovative ways we're keeping mothers and babies healthy
Save the Children is using innovative solutions from boats to drones to deliver urgent care to mothers and babies around the world.
Mauwa*, 25, is attending a clinic where her daughter, Solange*, 5 months old, is undergoing treatment for pneumonia. Her daughter is being treated with the support of Save the Children in Goma, North Kivu province, Democratic Republic of Congo. Guerchom Ndebo / Save the Children
With your help, we can reach more newborns with the care they urgently need.
We can help mothers deliver their babies safely, we can send midwives and mobile clinics to the hardest-to-reach places, and we can give children the start in life they deserve.
Together, let’s make sure the babies who made it through this year don’t just survive the next - they thrive.
