Neonatal deaths hamper India's infant mortality targets.

India will be unable to achieve any substantial further drop in its infant mortality without first intensifying efforts to protect babies during their first four weeks of life, neonatologists told a conference in New Delhi last week. An estimated 1.2 million babies die in India each year during the first month after birth, making up two thirds of the nation’s infant mortality of 67 per thousand live births, doctors said at a symposium on the health of newborn infants. The government wants to reduce infant mortality to 30 per thousand live births by 2010, but neonatologists said this goal is unlikely to be met without a sustained public health programme that tackles healthcare delivery to newborns. With nearly 70% of India’s annual 26 million births taking place at home, doctors attribute most neonatal deaths to birth asphyxia and to neonatal infections and sepsis caused by unhygienic delivery and poor neonatal care. Ganapati Mudur New Delhi