Sociology

United Nations and World Health Organization have long acknowledged the importance of cross country comparison of perinatal and neonatal mortality and its constituents. Among the many tasks of the two organizations is the gathering of health statistics. The two organizations present invaluable statistics on various social issues. Together with data from International council of Nurses, these data sets will be used in the analysis of neonatal mortality in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

Both the United Nations and World Health Organization encourage the collection of statistics for key health indicators by countries and to establish monitoring capacity. Even though they do not contain neonatal mortality data for all countries, data for Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is available. Neonatal mortality rates provide reliable national survey that can be used in deriving estimates of earlier mortality.
According to World health Organization, more than fifty percent of the 7.5 million deaths around the world occur in the first twenty eight days after birth (World Health Organization, 2009). 98 percent of these deaths take place in developing regions. Overall, there are 30 neonatal deaths in every 1000 live births. In developing countries, there are 33 neonatal deaths in every 1000 live births. The risk of death during neonatal period in developing countries is more than six times that of developed countries (World Health Organization, 2009). Recent statistics suggest that Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has thirteen neonatal deaths out of 1000 live births (United Nations, 2009). Neonatal mortality suggests a slow decline in Saint Vincent and Grenadines from 1990 to 2000. It however showed stagnation between 2000 and 2005.

According to statistics, a great number of infant and under-five deaths in Saint Vincent and Grenadines take place soon after birth. Globally, the greater the proportion of deaths occurring before the age of four weeks, the lower the child mortality since it is easy to minimize under-five mortality. Early neonatal mortality in Saint Vincent and Grenadines account for four-fifth of neonatal deaths (United Nations, 2009). By regional standards, neonatal mortality rate exhibited by Saint Vincent and Grenadines are far much high.

Neonatal mortality should be given increased attention if under-five mortality is to be reduced in Saint Vincent and Grenadines. It is therefore important to assess the causes of neonatal deaths. A common argument during the 1968 was that the same social, economic and medical forces that influence the level of maternal mortality also affect the rate of maternal mortality. However, reviewed evidence suggests that this conclusion was not correct. In other words, the forces are not the same. The evidence in support of this position is founded on the study of mortality rates in large populations. It encompasses holistic study of the deaths of mothers and babies. Moving from generalizations to specifics, can the findings be linked to individual instance Put in another way, can the findings be linked to direct and immediate causes of maternal, neonatal or post-neonatal mortality to find out whether they make sense or not

Post-neonatal deaths have no problem since they took place at least thirty days after delivery. A large percentage of these deaths were caused by infections mainly associated with environmental causes. Apart from the rare cases such as late deaths as a result of congenital malformations, there is no reason to suspect that there is a connection between death after thirty days and the events that took place at or prior to birth. However, there are many problems when it comes to neonatal deaths. Owing to lack of data, maternal death cannot be associated with neonatal deaths in Saint Vincent and Grenadines.

Neonatal deaths have been associated with inadequate care during pregnancy, inappropriate management of complications during pregnancy and delivery, poor hygiene and first critical hours after birth, and lack of newborn care (United Nations, 2009). Other factors such as the status of women in the society, their nutritional status during conception, early childbearing, pregnancy interval and harmful practices such as inadequate care for the cord, exposing the baby to cold and dump among other things are deeply ingrained in a societys cultural fabric. These factors often interact in very complicated ways that are not clearly comprehended.

Many societies do not perceive neonatal deaths as a problem simply because they are common (International Council of Nurses, 2010). This is not supported by any empirical evidence especially in Saint Vincent and Grenadines.  Societies have tended to adapt to this situation in various ways including not acknowledging the birth as complete thereby postponing the naming of the newborn until heshe survives the initial period (International Council of Nurses, 2010). In Saint Vincent and Grenadines, there is normally lack of skills among health workers at primary and secondary level of care to satisfactorily meet the needs of the newborn infant owing to the fact that it is just recently that it has come to recognize the opportunities. As such, they have limited experience in this area.

From available statistics on Saint Vincent and Grenadines, the various reasons for neonatal deaths malformation, premature birth, pre- and post-obstetric complications, and difficulty in adapting to the external environment. According to World Health Organization (year), a great percentage of deaths among children under five years in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines was attributed to neonatal causes. The data also indicate that in 2000, 22 of neonatal deaths were caused by severe infections which included deaths from meningitis, pneumonia and other infections during the neonatal period. Congenital anomalies contributed to 15 percent of these deaths while birth asphyxia contributed to ten percent of the deaths. The greatest cause of death was however preterm births which contributed to 46 percent of the births. Included under preterm birth are deaths directly occurring as a result of prematurity and particular complications of preterm birth. Death attributed to other causes only amounted to 7 percent.

Neonatal mortality in Saint Vincent and Grenadines are largely caused by preventable and treatable conditions. There have been various intervention programs commissioned in this region that benefit mothers by minimizing maternal deaths and complications, and those that focus on educating women on the physiological needs of new born babies such as breast feeding, warmth, hygene, prevention and early detection and management of major diseases (International Council of Nurses, 2010). With such kind of intervention programs, the country is likely to reduce neonatal mortality rate by more than nine six percent by the year 2015.