Published on Tuesday in the journal PLoS Medicine, the study shows that babies under 4 weeks old account for 41 percent of child deaths worldwide.
Lawn said the United Nations and other international organizations must pay closer attention to the newborn mortality rates in order to save more children's lives. The U.N. reports annually on deaths of children under ages 5 and 1, but estimates for newborn deaths are released only sporadically.
Lawn said the three leading causes of newborn death are preterm delivery, asphyxia and severe infections — all problems easily prevented with proper care.
"Training more midwives and other community health workers could save the lives of many more babies," she said. "We know that solutions as simple as keeping newborns warm, clean and properly breast-fed can keep them alive."
The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine also participated in the study, which covers all 193 WHO member countries over 20 years.
It shows that from 1990 to 2009, annual newborn deaths decreased from 4.6 million to 3.3 million. But the study's authors say progress is too slow, especially in Africa.
The study shows that newborn babies in countries including Malaysia, Cuba, and Poland now have a better chance of survival than those born in the United States. "It's not that things are worse in the United States than before, it's that the U.S. isn't making progress like other countries," Lawn said.
Because of improvements in infant care in some countries, newborns in Qatar, Croatia and the United Arab Emirates now die at about the same rate as those in the United States, the figures show.
