Eliminating micronutrient deficiencies and thus prevent the infant death during pregnancy

Malnutrition, defined as insufficient supply of calories and micronutrients, causes directly and indirectly the infant death during pregnancy.

An overview of appropriate preventive measures of the UN Initiative Everywoman Every Child to prevent child mortality provides the following scheme (1):

The journal The Lancet recently published a paper on rates and risk factors for stillborn children in the world and gives a prospective view until 2030. The supplemented material indicates that, in Zambia 13,100 children were born dead in the past year. This number might seem quite high, however since the turn of the millennium until 2015, the frequency of stillbirth in Zambia has been successfully reduced, from 26.3 per 1,000 stillborn children to 20.9 per 1,000 (2).

Read and see more:

1. Interventions and action to prevent and respond to stillbirths along the continuum of women’s and children’s healthcare. Table in L. D. Bernis. Stillbirths: ending preventable deaths by 2030. The Lancet. Published online: 18 January 2016 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)00954-XIn addition to this evaluation also see the Progress Report on the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health 2010-2015
   http://everywomaneverychild.org/images/March_10_EWEC_Progress_Report_FINAL.pdf
2. J.E. Lawn. Stillbirths: rates, risk factors, and acceleration towards 2030. The Lancet. Published online January 18, 2016. Supplementary Appendix. Page 11 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)00837-5
   The rate of stillborn children is calculated from the ratio of the number of
   stillbirths with more than 1,000 grams bodyweight or from the 28^th week of pregnancy in 1,000 births. See ebenda, SBR, page 4