Neonatal Mortality Rate by Country 2024

The most vulnerable time for a child's survival is the first 28 days of life, known as the neonatal period. It is during this period, just under the first month of a child's life, that they face the highest risk of dying.

Across the globe, children face this risk at an average rate of 18 deaths per 1,000 live births, according to data collected by UNICEF for 2021, the most recent year available. That rate of neonatal death is down by about 51% from 37 deaths per 1,000 live births reported in 1990. Across the world, 2.3 million children died during the neonatal period of the first month of life in 2021, which equaled about 6,400 neonatal deaths per day.

High neonatal mortality rate

Low neonatal mortality rate

U.S. Neonatal mortality rate

The U.S. recorded a relatively low neonatal mortality rate of 3.27, a rate that has decreased in every year since 2016. In that year, the U.S. neonatal mortality rate was reported at 3.84, which is about 17% higher than the rate reported in 2021.

Big disparities in neonatal mortality

Although the neonatal mortality rate has been declining globally, there remains large disparities among countries and across regions. For example, when considering neonatal mortality rate across regions of the globe, the highest rate of 29 deaths per 1,000 live births was in the sub-Saharan Africa region, which is the combination of the West and Central Africa and Eastern and Southern Africa regions. A child born in sub-Saharan Africa was over 10 times more likely to die in the first month than a child born in a high-income country, according to UNICEF's analysis of data. In South Asia, with the neonatal mortality rate estimated at 27 deaths per 1,000 live births, a child was nine times more likely to die. Across countries, the risk of dying in the first month of life was about 53 times higher in the highest mortality country than in the lowest mortality country.