How Many Newborn Babies Die Every Day
Around 2.3 million babies die in their first month of life each year, about 6,300 a day. Why the first days are so dangerous, and what saves newborn lives.
Picture a maternity ward in a busy hospital in South Asia, just before dawn. Rows of mothers lie with their babies beside them. In one corner, a baby born six weeks early is struggling to stay warm. She weighs not much more than a bag of sugar. There is no incubator free. A nurse shows the mother how to hold her daughter skin to skin, inside her clothing, against her chest, and to keep her there day and night.
It sounds almost too simple to matter. It is not. That one technique, called kangaroo mother care, is among the most effective ways ever found to keep small and premature babies alive. It costs almost nothing. And it is still not reaching most of the babies who need it.
The first month of life is the most dangerous period any human being will ever pass through. More people die in their first 28 days than in any other single month of life.
The headline number
According to the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME), around 2.3 million babies died in their first 28 days of life in 2023. That works out to roughly 6,300 newborn deaths every day, or about four every minute. You can see how those deaths fit into the full count on our live death counter.
| Time period | Newborn deaths (approx.) |
|---|---|
| Per minute | 4.4 |
| Per hour | 263 |
| Per day | 6,300 |
| Per week | 44,100 |
| Per month | 192,000 |
| Per year | 2,300,000 |
You may notice that our neonatal conditions page shows around 2 million deaths a year. That figure comes from WHO's cause-of-death estimates, which count deaths caused by neonatal conditions specifically. The UN IGME figure of 2.3 million counts every baby who dies in the first 28 days from any cause, including infections such as pneumonia and diarrhoea. Both are correct; they are measuring slightly different things.
Newborn deaths make up nearly half of all deaths of children under five. Of the roughly 4.8 million children who die before their fifth birthday each year, around 2.3 million never reach one month old. We cover the wider picture in how many children die every day and on our under 5 age group page.
The first day is the most dangerous
Within that first month, risk is not spread evenly. It is concentrated, overwhelmingly, at the very beginning.
| Time after birth | Approx. share of newborn deaths |
|---|---|
| First 24 hours | Around a third |
| First week | Around three quarters |
| Days 8 to 28 | Around a quarter |
The day of birth is the most dangerous day of a human life almost everywhere on earth. This is why so many of the most effective interventions focus on the hours around labour and delivery: a skilled birth attendant, a clean place to give birth, and someone who knows how to help a baby who is not breathing.
This is also the reason that, when deaths are counted by single year of age, the most common age to die worldwide is zero, a fact we explore in what is the most common age to die.
What newborn babies die from
Three causes account for the large majority of newborn deaths, according to WHO and UN IGME analyses.
| Cause | Approx. share of newborn deaths | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Complications of preterm birth | ~35% | Babies born before 37 weeks struggle to breathe, feed and stay warm |
| Complications during labour and delivery | ~20 to 25% | Including birth asphyxia, when a baby does not get enough oxygen |
| Infections | ~15 to 20% | Sepsis, pneumonia, meningitis, tetanus, diarrhoea |
| Congenital conditions | ~10% | Heart defects, neural tube defects and others |
| Other | ~10% | Including jaundice and injuries |
Prematurity is now the single leading cause of death among all children under five worldwide, not just newborns. Around 13 million babies are born too early every year, and the earlier they arrive, the more help they need with breathing, warmth, feeding and fighting infection. Infection in newborns is closely linked to sepsis and pneumonia, two of the biggest killers of young children.
Where newborn deaths happen
As with maternal deaths, the geography of newborn deaths is deeply unequal.
| Region | Newborn mortality pattern |
|---|---|
| Sub-Saharan Africa | Highest newborn death rate of any region, around 27 per 1,000 live births |
| Southern Asia | The second highest rate, and a very large number of deaths because of the huge number of births |
| Europe and North America | Low rates, mostly under 4 per 1,000 |
| World | Around 17 per 1,000 live births |
The rates are from UN IGME's 2023 estimates. A baby born in sub-Saharan Africa is roughly 10 times more likely to die in the first month than a baby born in Europe or North America.
A handful of countries account for a large share of the global total, mostly because they have very large numbers of births. India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia together account for close to half of all newborn deaths worldwide. Pakistan and Nigeria have some of the highest newborn death rates anywhere outside conflict zones, while countries such as South Sudan and Somalia face the added strain of conflict and displacement.
How newborn deaths compare across rich countries
At the other end of the scale, some countries have pushed newborn deaths to remarkably low levels.
| Country | Approx. newborn deaths per 1,000 live births |
|---|---|
| Japan | ~1 |
| Norway, Finland, Sweden | ~1 to 2 |
| United Kingdom | ~3 |
| United States | ~3 to 4 |
| India | ~17 |
| Nigeria | ~35 |
| Pakistan | ~38 |
These are rounded from UN IGME and national statistics, and vary a little between years and sources. The UK and US are low by global standards but lag behind the best-performing countries. In both, rates are higher among babies born in deprived areas and to Black mothers, the same pattern we see in maternal deaths and in how income affects life expectancy.
Progress, and how much is left
The long-term trend is one of the great success stories of global health, even if it has slowed.
| Year | Approx. newborn deaths worldwide | Newborn mortality rate (per 1,000 live births) |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | ~5,000,000 | ~37 |
| 2000 | ~4,000,000 | ~30 |
| 2010 | ~3,000,000 | ~22 |
| 2023 | ~2,300,000 | ~17 |
Newborn deaths have more than halved since 1990. But they have fallen more slowly than deaths among older children, which is why newborns now make up a growing share of all child deaths. Diseases such as measles and diarrhoea, which mostly affect older babies and toddlers, have been pushed back further and faster. The very first days of life have proved harder to protect.
The UN's Sustainable Development Goal is for every country to cut its newborn death rate to 12 per 1,000 live births or lower by 2030. UN IGME estimates that around 60 countries are not on track to reach that target in time.
What saves newborn lives
Almost every one of these interventions is simple, proven and inexpensive. The challenge is reaching every birth.
| Intervention | What it does |
|---|---|
| Skilled birth attendant | Manages complications during labour, helps babies who do not breathe at birth |
| Newborn resuscitation | Simple bag-and-mask techniques for babies who are not breathing |
| Kangaroo mother care | Skin-to-skin contact keeps small babies warm and helps feeding |
| Early and exclusive breastfeeding | Protects against infection and malnutrition |
| Clean cord care | Prevents infection; chlorhexidine is used in high-risk settings |
| Antenatal corticosteroids | Given to mothers in preterm labour to help the baby's lungs mature |
| Antibiotics for newborn infections | Treats sepsis and pneumonia early |
| Tetanus vaccination in pregnancy | Has made newborn tetanus rare in most countries |
Kangaroo mother care has some of the strongest evidence. A large WHO-led trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2021 found that starting continuous skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth, rather than waiting until a baby was stable, reduced deaths among low-birthweight babies by about a quarter. WHO now recommends it for all small and preterm babies.
Many of these interventions also protect mothers, because they depend on the same thing: a trained health worker present at birth, with basic supplies and a way to reach a hospital. Investing in midwives is one of the most efficient ways to save both lives at once.
Stillbirths: the deaths that are not counted here
There is one more group that does not appear in newborn death statistics: babies who die before or during birth. UN IGME estimates that there are around 1.9 million stillbirths every year, at 28 weeks of pregnancy or later. Many of them share the same causes, and the same solutions, as newborn deaths, especially those that happen during labour. Counted together, around 4 million babies die either just before birth or in the first month after it, every single year.
Why the first month gets less attention than it deserves
Newborn deaths are strangely invisible, even in global health. Many happen at home, in the first hours, before a birth has been registered or a name has been given. In some countries, a large share of babies who die in the first week are never recorded in any official system at all, which is why UN IGME has to rely on household surveys and statistical modelling to estimate the totals.
There is a cultural side too. In places where newborn deaths have always been common, families sometimes wait days or weeks before naming a baby or celebrating a birth. Grief for a newborn is often private and unspoken.
That invisibility matters, because what is not counted is rarely funded. Campaigns against malaria or measles can point to a clear disease and a clear vaccine or drug. Saving newborns depends on something less dramatic: better care for every birth, every day, in every district. It is harder to photograph, but it saves more lives than almost anything else in global health.
While you were reading this
You have spent about 12 minutes with this article. In that time, roughly 75 newborn babies have died somewhere in the world. Around a third of them did not live through their first day. Most of them were born in sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia, and most could have survived with warmth, breastfeeding, clean hands, a trained midwife and a few cheap medicines.
You can see how those deaths fit into the full picture on our live death counter, the deaths today page and our child mortality page.
The first days of life are fragile everywhere. But the gap between a country where one baby in a thousand dies in the first month and a country where 35 do is not biology. It is midwives, clean water, electricity, drugs and roads. And every one of those can be built.
Data sources: UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME) Levels and Trends in Child Mortality reports, UNICEF, World Health Organization (newborn mortality fact sheets and cause-of-death estimates), WHO Immediate KMC Study Group (New England Journal of Medicine, 2021), UN IGME stillbirth estimates. Figures are rounded and represent the most recent available estimates; daily and hourly figures are derived from annual totals. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. If you are worried about your baby's health, contact your midwife, health visitor, GP or emergency services straight away.
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