The 2025 Global Action Report on Preterm Birth, which includes information and data from 46 countries and multiple international experts and organisations, investigates what progress has been made in the last decade to reduce the rate of pre-term births.

It identifies the impact of pre-term birth on babies, mother, fathers, families, communities and societies using personal stories and experiences and makes robust recommendations for future actions to improve survival rates and enable pre-term babies to thrive. 

Every year, there are approximately 15 million pre-term births globally leading to more than a million child deaths and some survivors experiencing lifelong health difficulties. The pre-term birth rate is rising globally - pre-term birth constituted 9.9% of births in 2020 compared to 9.8% in 2010 and is the leading cause of death among newborns in the first four weeks. The Report notes that conflict, climate change, Covid 19 and the cost of living crisis have affected the outcomes of pre-term births over the last decade and identifies significant disparities between lower and higher income countries although some wealthy countries, notably the USA and Brazil, have higher rates of pre-term birth than might be expected. In low-income settings, even babies born at 32 weeks may die due to lack of warmth, breastfeeding support, and treatment for infections and breathing problems. 

Priorities for prevention and care are addressed over several chapters with recommendations for specific ‘pivots’ for action. Key strategies include:

• generating more accurate data on pre-term births, thereby increasing accountability; 
• increasing access to family planning (including for adolescents);
• empowering women;
• providing respectful care and attending to the rights of pregnant women;
• improving the quality of care before, between, and during pregnancies. 

The Report identifies the actors who need to be involved in improving care and preventing pre-term births. These include policy makers, health care providers, academics and researchers, as well as parent organisations and the charitable sector. It encourages cross border and cross specialism working and collaboration.

Finally in Chapter 7, the Report provides a roadmap for what must be done differently in the coming decade to address the unacceptable burden of preterm birth. It emphasises that ‘behind every statistic is a story’ and concludes with a call to action: ‘Together, we can achieve the changes needed by every woman, every baby, and every family’.

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Read more:

Born Too Soon: The global action report on pre-term birth (2025) Available at: 

https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/44864/9789241503433_eng.pdf