Child Survival in India: A Serious Issue

The level of child undernutrition remains unacceptable throughout the world, with 90 per cent of the developing world’s chronically undernourished (stunted) children living in Asia and Africa. Detrimental and often undetected until severe, undernutrition undermines the survival, growth and development of children and women, and diminishes the strength and capacity of nations. With persistently high levels of undernutrition in the developing world, vital opportunities to save millions of lives are being lost, and many more millions of children are not growing and developing to their full potential. Nutrition is a core pillar of human development and concrete, large-scale programming not only can reduce the burden of undernutrition and deprivation in countries but also can advance the progress of nations.

Fast Facts: In India 20 per cent of children under five years of age suffer from wasting due to acute undernutrition. More than one third of the world’s children who are wasted live in India. Forty three per cent of Indian children under five years are underweight and 48 per cent (i.e. 61 million children) are stunted due to chronic undernutrition, India accounts for more than 3 out of every 10 stunted children in the world. Undernutrition is substantially higher in rural than in urban areas. Short birth intervals are associated with higher levels of undernutrition. The per centage of children who are severely underweight is almost five times higher among children whose mothers have no education than among children whose mothers have 12 or more years of schooling. Undernutrition is more common for children of mothers who are undernourished themselves (i.e. body mass index below 18.5) than for children whose mothers are not undernourished. Children from scheduled tribes have the poorest nutritional status on almost every measure and the high prevalence of wasting in this group (28 per cent) is of particular concern. • India has the highest number of low birth weight babies per year at an estimated 7.4 million. • Only 25 per cent of newborns were put to the breast within one hour of birth. • Less than half of children (46 per cent) under six months of age are exclusively breastfed. • Only 20 per cent children age 6-23 months are fed appropriately according to all three recommended practices for infant and young child feeding. • 70 per cent children age 6- 59 months are anaemic. Children of mothers who are severely anaemic are seven times as likely to be severely anaemic as children of mothers who are not anaemic. • Only half (51 per cent) of households use adequately iodized salt. • Only one third (33 per cent) Indian children receive any service from an anganwadi centre; less than 25per cent receive supplementary foods through ICDS; and only 18 per cent have their weights measured in an AWC.
Source: UNICEF