Belarus is CIS best place to be born in

According to an international ranking assessing 160 nations, Belarus is the best place in the CIS to be a baby and 33rd in the world, chief pediatrician of the Healthcare Ministry of Belarus Yelena Nevero told a press conference, BelTA has learnt.

“The state support to families with children played a significant positive role in improving the country’s demographic situation. In recent years the natural population loss has been reducing. The crude birth rate was 12.2 births per 1,000 people; the crude death rate was 13.3 deaths per 1,000 people in 2012. For the first time the child population increased by 21,000 last year,” she said.

Yelena Nevero underlined that Belarus can be by right proud of its pediatric healthcare provision. The infant mortality rate in 2012 was 3.4 deaths per 1,000 live births, the best figure in the CIS (to compare: in Russia the figure stood at 8.7 deaths per 1,000 live births). The child mortality rate (children under 5 years) was 4.4 deaths per 1,000 live births. “This is the result of stable financing of the childbirth services, constant improvement of qualifications of the healthcare personnel, enhancing the affordability of all kinds of healthcare services,” she said. Yelena Nevero noted that prenatal diagnostics is well-developed in Belarus: some 98% of women have access to it.

She informed that traumas and poisoning are among most common reasons for infant and child deaths accounting for 10% of deaths of children under 1 year, 30% of children aged 1-4 years, and 67% of children aged 15-17. These children die of reasons not related to their health condition and the state of the healthcare provision in the country, Yelena Nevero added.