A brain-damaged infant can cost up to $20 million in care over its lifetime, the project leader of a Ministry of Health report says.
The fifth report of the Child and Youth Mortality Review Committee, released today, focussed on the areas like Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (Sudi), drowning, unintentional injury during the "risk-taking years" and youth suicide.
Child mortality rates were continuing to decrease, committee chair Nick Baker said, with significant Sudi reductions. Since the early 1990s, the numbers had dropped from 200 infants per year to 60.
However, "60 is still too many. A large number of deaths could be prevented if every baby slept safely every sleep," Dr Baker said.
Also, significantly fewer children were dying in unfenced pools, with the number dropping from 11 per year to about two or three, the report said.
"Children no longer die in unfenced pools. They die when [the fence] breaks down -- often when it is not maintained, or has been altered or damaged," he said.
While the data on deaths were abundant, those on significant and debilitating injury was not, the committee found.
"Permanent injury of a child can be a tragedy that carries enormous human, and financial, cost. A brain damaged infant can cost $20 million over their lifetime for additional care," Dr Baker said.
The most common threat to older children's health was injury, especially in the cases of boys, the report found.
The risks of death to males jumped around age 14, as they left behind the "relative safety of middle childhood" and moved towards manhood.
One co-author, Simon Denny, said though risk-taking was developmentally normal, "as a society we must work to make the environment in which our young people grow up less hazardous, while providing them with the opportunity to develop competence in managing risk without dying".
