• At least 9,200,000 children under the age of 5 die each year, more than 25,000 children per day, mostly from preventable and treatable causes according to UNICEF.
• In poor countries, an estimated 3,700,000 newborns die in the first 4 weeks of life according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
• Approximately 536,000 women die every year in developing countries from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, the equivalent of 1 woman per minute, according to WHO.
• Nearly 1 of every 5 children die before the age of 5, more than 2,000,000 child deaths per year, in the ten countries with the highest child mortality rates in the world: Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Burundi.
• Pneumonia, diarrhea, low birth weight, sepsis, birth trauma, and malaria, all preventable and treatable, are the top contributors of deaths of children under the age of 5.
• Poor nutrition is a major factor in 20 percent of maternal deaths, up to one-third of under-5 child deaths, and 60 to 80 percent of newborn deaths.
• Expansion of clinical care for newborns and mothers, such as clean delivery by skilled birth attendants, emergency obstetric care, and neonatal resuscitation can save the lives of mothers, and can also avert 50 percent of newborn deaths.
• Millions of children’s lives can be saved by high-impact, low-cost, feasible interventions like oral rehydration therapy (ORT) for diarrhea ($0.07 per treatment), antibiotics to treat respiratory infections ($0.25 per treatment), and anti-malaria tablets ($0.29 per treatment).
• Three million children die each year due to lack of access to low-cost antibiotics and anti-malarial drugs.

• Improve newborn care and treatment, including educating families about proper antenatal and skilled delivery care, drying and warming with the mother, immediate and exclusive breastfeeding, handwashing, clean cord care, prompt recognition and care seeking for danger signs, and treatment of neonatal infections.
• Increase access to and utilization of appropriate interventions to treat life-threatening childhood illnesses.
• Prevent and mitigate the severity of and treat diarrhea, including point of use water treatment, improvements in hygienic behavior, oral rehydration therapy (ORT), zinc, exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months of life, and adequate and young child feeding during the first 6 to 24 month period.
• Achieve the delivery of full immunization services, including efforts to eliminate polio and introduce new vaccines as available.
• Prevent and treat malaria through increased use of insecticide-treated nets, indoor residual spraying, and timely and appropriate treatment of malaria.
• Improve access to clean water and improved sanitation through community-based hygiene education programs, the use of personal water purification tools.

The bills presented here can be found online at www.opencongress.org

Information regarding the Representatives and Senators sitting on the Foreign Affairs committees can be found at www.internationalrelations.house.gov and foreign.senate.gov/