Morning Briefing

Fifteen million infants, or nearly one in 10 worldwide, "are born premature every year, and 1.1 million of those infants die, according to a U.N.-sponsored report released Wednesday," Agence France-Presse reports. "Premature birth is the leading cause of death for newborn infants and is on the rise globally, said the report led by the March of Dimes, the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, Save the Children and the World Health Organization," the news service writes (5/2). "For the report, preterm was defined as 37 weeks of completed gestation or less, the standard World Health Organization definition," USA Today notes (Healy, 5/3). According to the report, "[p]reterm births account for 11.1 percent of the world's live births, 60 percent of them in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa," and, "[i]n the poorest countries, on average, 12 percent of babies are born too soon, compared to nine percent in higher-income countries," the U.N. News Centre writes (5/2).