'Punjab loses 62 of every 1k babies in first year'

Experts urge access to family planning for protecting infants, mothers

LAHORE:

Despite having the country's largest budget for the biggest public healthcare network, 62 out of every 1,000 babies born alive in Punjab die before reaching their first birthday.

According to a Population Council fact sheet. Improving access to voluntary family planning can reduce infant and maternal deaths.

Experts say many of these deaths are preventable but take place because of weak primary healthcare, overcrowded maternity wards, shortages of neonatal specialists and unequal access to quality medical services between urban and rural areas.

The council estimates that if contraceptive prevalence in Punjab increases from the current 41 per cent to 59%, nearly 73,000 infants and 2,300 mothers could be saved every year through healthier birth spacing and fewer unintended pregnancies. At the national level, nearly 140,000 newborns and 3,800 mothers could be saved every year.

Meanwhile, the Punjab government has also introduced new guidelines and formed committees to improve conditions in children's wards of hospitals after the recent deaths of newborns in a fire at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences.

Public health experts argue that while successive governments have invested heavily in tertiary healthcare facilities and launched several flagship programmes, preventive healthcare has not received the same level of attention.

Community-based maternal services, including nutrition programmes, trained midwives and functional primary healthcare centres, remain inadequate in many districts, leaving expectant mothers and newborns vulnerable to preventable complications.

The World Health Organisation estimates that 675 newborns and 27 mothers die every day in Pakistan due to preventable complications during pregnancy, childbirth and the neonatal period.

The figures place Pakistan among the countries with one of the world's highest newborn mortality burdens and highlight the urgent need to strengthen maternal and child health services.

Health professionals say the first month of a child's life remains the most critical. Premature birth, infections, low weight and delayed access to emergency medical care claim thousands of newborn lives every year.

In many district hospitals, neonatal intensive care units remain overstretched, while referral systems often fail to ensure timely treatment of critically ill infants. The same situation is observed in the big districts of the province, where people often face difficulty in admitting their kids to children's wards.

The growing population is placing greater pressure on the stretched health services, with children's wards remaining crowded.