A/HRC/33/23 for monitoring multiple targets of the Sustainable Development Goals, including those requiring accurate, disaggregated data on mortality rates and causes. B. The newborn child 58. The neonatal period, the first 28 days of life, is the most vulnerable time for a child. Despite the substantive progress on reduction of child mortality, deaths of newborn babies are falling slower than deaths occurring in other periods of childhood. According to the Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, if current trends continue, the share of neonatal deaths is projected to increase from 45 per cent of under-5 deaths in 2015 to 52 per cent in 2030.13 59. Some countries have achieved enormous progress in reducing newborn deaths. For example, between 1990 and 2012, China saw a decline of over 80 per cent and Cambodia of more than 60 per cent, showing that progress is possible. However, unless further efforts are made globally to tackle deaths of newborn children, there is a risk that child mortality will stall.14 60. Focusing on the newborn child is urgent from both medical and human rights perspectives. While human rights mechanisms, including the Committee on the Rights of the Child, have devoted some attention to the newborn child, including through that Committee’s development of general comment No. 7 (2005) on implementing child rights in early childhood, a focused discussion at international level on the application of the Convention on the Rights of the Child to the newborn child could accelerate political will and ensure progress. That is critical given the vulnerability, lack of autonomy and full dependency on his or her caregivers of the newborn child. An urgent shift is required at all levels to give the newborn and his/her rights due attention. The application of the Convention on the Rights of the Child to the newborn child must be further discussed, understood and specified, and dialogue in that regard should be initiated in health and human rights forums. 61. Particularly inspiring is a text developed by a group of obstetricians, neonatologists and paediatricians on the newborn child.15 In it, the authors recognize that no one is entitled to put at risk the health or physical integrity of a newborn child irrespective of racial, geographic or cultural origin or sexual discrimination and that every live newborn is entitled to appropriate assistance during delivery. It focuses on the right of every newborn to be born in the most suitable place, considering his or her foreseeable care requirements, especially if she or he suffers from or is at risk of an illness, and the right of the newborn child to be with his or her parents. It also raises the complex situation of newborns with health problems. 62. Complications from childbirth can have a significant impact on newborns and their development. Around 10 per cent of all newborns in every country need assistance to begin breathing.16 If that assistance is not provided, the newborn may die of asphyxia or suffer consequences such as cerebral palsy and developmental delay. Yet, in developing countries, many health facilities do not have the equipment to resuscitate newborns. UNICEF has reported that quality of care for the newborn child is grossly lacking and, in regions with the highest newborn mortality rates, access to postnatal care is abysmally low. 17 This 13 14 15 16 17 GE.16-11320 Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, “Report 2015”, p. 7. Save the Children, Ending Newborn Deaths: Ensuring Every Baby Survives (London, 2014). See www.uenps.com. Save the Children, Ending Newborn Deaths. UNICEF, Committing to Child Survival, p. 7. 13