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ewborns and infant nutrition are among issues that need more focus beyond the 2015 target for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), public health experts have said.

“We now know that about 12 percent of all [infant] mortality is due to babies born after the 28th week of pregnancy,” said Carole Presern, executive director for the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health at the World Health Organization (WHO).

Newborns at this stage were premature, she said, adding that a normal pregnancy was 40 weeks.

She added that in developed countries, premature babies had a 90 percent chance of surviving, but in poorer countries, they had only a 10 percent chance.

On reducing infant mortality rates, Presern said that there had been progress, noting that there had been less emphasis on newborns and nutrition for infants.

“[Nutrition] is important, so as to prevent stunting. And for girls and women, if they don’t get adequate nutrition, they can go into childbirth experiencing anemic and unable to fight disease or infection,” she said.

Last year, UNICEF noted that Indonesia was on track to achieve the MDGs to reduce its infant mortality rate to 34 per 1,000 live births.

However, it reported that 27 of the nation’s then 33 provinces had higher mortality rates than the national average.

UNICEF also reported a large gap between provinces, stating that West Sulawesi, the worst-performing province, had an infant-mortality rate of 74 per 1,000 live births, well above the national average of 34 and the 19 recorded by the nation’s best-performing province, Yogyakarta.

Fasli Jalal, a professor of nutrition at Andalas University in Padang, West Sumatra, said that the post-2015 development framework should highlight early childhood development.

The experts were among the participants of international talks on the global development agenda beyond the 2015 deadline for the MDGs.

“Early childhood support for both mothers and young children improves maternal and child health and nutrition, as well as combating HIV/AIDS,” Fasli said.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child defines early childhood as extending from the prenatal stage to age 8.

On reducing maternal mortality, Presern of the WHO said that mostly such deaths were preventable.

According to the WHO’s Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, 35 percent of maternal deaths were caused by hemorrhage and 18 percent by hypertension and indirect diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS and cardiac disease.

“What might have been missing from the MDGs is morbidity, which might be related to the quality of care they get. Or they do not get any care at all,” Presern said.

Meeting the MDGs of reducing maternal mortality rates by 75 percent between 1990 and 2015, would require an annual reduction rate of 5.5 percent, while the current rate of reduction was 1.9 percent, Presern said.

She added that for every woman who died, about 20 to 30 percent suffered life-long disabilities as the result of their childbirth experience due to unsafe abortion, for instance.