Child mortality

Child mortality, also known as under-5 mortality or child death, refers to the death of infants and children under the age of five or between the age of one month to four years depending on the definition. A child's death is emotionally and physically hard on the parents. Many deaths in the majority of the world go unreported since many poor families cannot afford to register their babies in the government registry.

The same causes and preventative measures that apply to infant mortality (i.e. for children younger than one year old) also apply to understanding child mortality.

Reduction of child mortality is the fourth of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. Rapid progress towards the Millennium Development Goals has resulted in a significant decline in preventable child deaths since 1990, with the global under-5 mortality rate declining by nearly half over this time period. While in 1990, 12.7 million children under age five died, in 2013 that number fell to 6.3 million children. However, despite advances, at the current pace the world will not meet the MDG target until 2026.

Globally in 2013, 3.7 million children aged one month to 4 years of age died, down from 7.6 million in 1990. About half of child deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. Reduction of child mortality is the fourth of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals which were replaced in 2015 by the Sustainable Development Goals. In 2015 an estimated 5.9 million children died before their fifth birthday, 45% of them during the first 28 days of life.

The leading causes of death of children under five include:

Pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria together are the cause of 3 out of every 10 child deaths before the age of 5 and nearly half of under-five deaths globally are attributable to undernutrition.

Child survival is a field of public health concerned with reducing child mortality. Child survival interventions are designed to address the most common causes of child deaths that occur, which include diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria, and neonatal conditions. Of the portion of children under the age of 5 alone, an estimated 9.2 million children die each year mostly from such preventable causes. According to an estimate by UNICEF in 2008, one million child deaths could be prevented annually at a cost of $US 1 billion per year (an average of $US 1000 for each child).

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