World Prematurity Day: New WHO guidelines on skin-to-skin contact from the moment of birth
5 min readNov 17, 2022
Today is World Prematurity Day, a day to celebrate the health and wellbeing of babies born too early. To mark the day, the World Health Organization has issued new guidelines highlighting the importance of skin-to-skin contact from the moment of birth.
17th November 2022: #WorldPrematurityDay
Today is World Prematurity Day, a day to celebrate the health and wellbeing of babies born preterm.
The statistics take your breath away, but not in a good way.
Around the world…
- More than 1 in 10 babies are born preterm each year.
- That’s around 15 million babies each year who are born too early.
- Around 1 million children die each year from complications relating to preterm birth.
- Preterm birth is now the leading cause of death of children under 5.
- Not just that, but over 20 million babies around the world have a low birthweight.
To mark the day, World Health Organization has issued new guidelines highlighting the importance of skin-to-skin contact from the moment of birth.
