Right, this comment is not going to be popular, but I don't care.

Is this planet not over-populated enough? Surely if none of these people died African countries would be even poorer, with even less resources to go 'round?

Maybe, just maybe, this world would be better off with less people in it.

Its all very well to go on about keeping as many people alive as possible, but who is going to feed them? Give them jobs?

Maybe we should be concentrating our efforts on spreading the use and practice of effective contraception. This would also have the benefit of tackling the spread of STDs and AIDS.

One of Africa's many problems is certainly not a lack of population

“The biggest killers of these young babies are preventable and treatable causes”.

Yes, but one of the greatest paradoxes of all time has been the introduction and widespread use of basic medicines that have dealt with easily preventable and treatable ailments, leading to a reduced infant mortality rate and thus a much-increased rate of population growth, which has gone a very long way towards keeping many peoples around the world in stinking poverty.

“The health of the mother, female education, the presence of a skilled attendant at birth and access to, and use of, family planning services have been identified as the areas most strongly associated with child survival and well-being.”

Yes and this is where international aid should be concentrated, not least on family planning and the need for the birthrate to be no more than replacement level, and thus for couples to have no more than 2 children.

Karen Hill’s passionate concern for children and mothers worldwide is highly admirable. But she has failed to make any mention of population growth, fertility rates, or the like, or the fact that if the infant fertility rate was on average even slightly reduced, in the absence of very effective family planning measures, population growth would be significantly higher…in an obviously very seriously overpopulated world. This is a critically important part of the whole issue.

These bleeding hearts will love the whole world to death, given the chance. The people pf the third world would be much better off if the figure was 10 million.

Woops. “Infant fertility rate” should read ‘Infant mortality rate’.