Report Gives U.S. Low Marks in Infant Survival and Mother Success

More than 1 million babies die the day they are born every year and the United States is a riskier place to be born than 68 other countries, according to a new study conducted by the nonprofit Save the Children and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The 2013 State of the World's Mothers report focuses in on newborn health and includes a new Birth Day Risk Index that ranks 186 countries by the chances a baby will die on the first day of life.

In the industrialized world, the United States accounts for 60 percent of all first-day deaths, but only 38 percent of all live births, the new report says. Put another way, an estimated 11,300 U.S. babies died on their first day of life in 2011.

In addition, some counties in the U.S. have first-day death rates similar to those in the developing world, where 98 percent of all first-day deaths occur.

Along with the newborn survival rates, the report also included Save the Children's Mothers' Index, an annual run-down --- released for Mother's Day --- of the best and worst places to be a mother.

The U.S. ranked 30^th in that list, while Finland was named the best place in the world to be a mother and Democratic Republic of the Congo as the hardest.

America placed ahead of Japan and South Korea but below all of Western Europe, Australia, Slovenia, Singapore, New Zealand, Estonia, Canada, Czech Republic, Israel, Belarus, Lithuania and Poland.

The Mothers' Index rankings are based on opportunities for women in the surveyed countries for education, income, political representation and the survival rates for mothers and their babies.

America's low rankings in the report notwithstanding, the presented data offers reasons to feel hopeful, said Carolyn Miles, president and CEO of Save the Children.

"It shows there is a growing movement to save newborn lives and growing evidence that we can do it-saving up to 75 percent of them with no intensive care whatsoever."

The report highlights several very poor countries making great strides to save newborns-including Nepal, Bangladesh, Malawi and Ethiopia.

Research shows overall child mortality has since 1990 decreased notably around the world, from 12 million annual deaths to less than 7 million.

Globally, a rising 43 percent of child deaths now occur in the newborn period, the first month of life.

The new report shows more than a third of newborn deaths, which accounts for 15 percent of all child deaths overall, occur on the first day of life.

The three leading causes of newborn deaths are prematurity, birth complications and severe infections, according to the report.

The largest numbers of first-day deaths occur in India, with more than 300,000 a year, and Nigeria, which claims almost 90,000 yerarly. At the same time, Somalia has been identified with the highest first-day death rate, 18 for every 1,000 live births, while Luxemburg, Singapore and Sweden registered the lowest, less than 0.5 per 1,000 births.

Said actress Jennifer Garner, a Save the Children artist ambassador: "Even with all of the care I had, even with monitoring the babies all the way through, I still had fears. So it's hard not to think about women who don't have all of that care, and how scared they must be."