Global estimates of mortality in newborn babies, children, and adolescents

While the growth rate of the world's population has declined to 0.86% per year, the rate of mortality has also slowed down. Part of the decline in mortality can be attributed to considerable efforts on young infant and child survival, which have been successful. But the message from a linked series of papers on neonatal, child, and adolescent mortality published in The BMJ (doi:10.1136/bmj-2025-088684; doi:10.1136/bmj-2025-088685; doi:10.1136/bmj-2025-088686; doi:10.1136/bmj-2025-088687) is clear: since 2015, the rate of decline in mortality rates in newborn babies, children under 5 years old, older children, and adolescents has slowed substantially.1234 Although the number of deaths among children under 5 has decreased over the past two decades, 4.9 million children in this age group died in 2024, with almost half of the deaths occurring in newborn babies. While the mortality rate among children under 5 declined by 3.9% in 2000-15, the rate of decline was only 1.5% in...