United Nations marks 7 billionth baby

Nurses hold new­born babies in Sidon, Lebanon, Mon­day. As of Oct. 31, accord­ing to the U.N. Pop­u­la­tion Fund, there will be 7 bil­lion peo­ple shar­ing Earth’s land and resources. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Mohammed Zaatari)

JON GAMBRELL

Asso­ci­ated Press

LAGOS, Nige­ria — One South African mother, just 19, named her new­born “Enough” and shrugged off a nurse who ques­tioned whether she was old enough to know how many chil­dren she wanted.

In Nige­ria, new­born twins have to share a bassinet in a crowded pub­lic hos­pi­tal that doesn’t have enough electricity.

“Where there is life, there is hope,” their mother said. But as the world’s pop­u­la­tion sur­passes 7 bil­lion, fears were stirred anew about how the planet will cope with the needs of so many humans.

The United Nations marked the mile­stone Mon­day, even though it is impos­si­ble to pin­point the arrival of the globe’s 7 bil­lionth occu­pant because mil­lions of peo­ple are born and die each day.

At Lagos Island Mater­nity Hos­pi­tal, the strain of car­ing for a bur­geon­ing pop­u­la­tion was evi­dent. The dron­ing roar of a gen­er­a­tor could be heard through­out one hot ward, where it pow­ered ceil­ing fans and incu­ba­tors. While Nige­ria is oil-rich, it does not pro­duce nearly enough power for its more than 160 mil­lion people.

Seun Dupe, a 32-year-old hair­dresser who gave birth to the twins on Oct. 23, remained an opti­mist despite the stag­ger­ing bur­den fac­ing Africa’s most pop­u­lous nation and other devel­op­ing coun­tries. Her babies spent Mon­day squirm­ing beneath a bundled-up mos­quito net. She has yet to decide on their names.

Dupe was con­fi­dent that new lives will ensure Nigeria’s future as “a great nation.”

Nigeria’s megac­ity of Lagos is expected some­day to sur­pass Cairo as the continent’s most populous.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the day was “not about one new­born or even one gen­er­a­tion” but “about our entire human family.”

At a news con­fer­ence in New York, he noted “a world of con­tra­dic­tions” — famine in the Horn of Africa, fight­ing in Syria and else­where and wide­spread protests against eco­nomic inequality.

“Seven bil­lion pop­u­la­tion is a chal­lenge,” he said, and “at the same time, an oppor­tu­nity, depend­ing upon how the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity pre­pares for that challenge.”

In South Africa, Nozipho Goqo, an unem­ployed 19-year-old from Johan­nes­burg, gave birth Mon­day to a boy, her first child. She gave him a Zulu name — Gwak­wanele — that means “enough.”

A nurse at Char­lotte Max­eke, a sprawl­ing teach­ing hos­pi­tal that serves a large region in and around the city, teased Goqo that she was too young to know whether this would be her last baby. Goqo smiled and said she was sure.

Across the mater­nity ward, Dora Mon­na­gara­toe cud­dled her new­born son in a bed. The 40-year-old maid named her fourth baby Tebogo, or “we are thank­ful” in the Sotho language.

“It’s three girls and one boy now,” said Mon­na­gara­toe, her­self one of eight chil­dren. “It’s fine.”

Demog­ra­phers say it took until 1804 for the world to reach its first bil­lion peo­ple and a cen­tury more until it hit 2 bil­lion in 1927. Soon the num­bers began to cas­cade: 3 bil­lion in 1959, 4 bil­lion in 1974, 5 bil­lion in 1987, 6 bil­lion in 1998.

The U.N. esti­mates the world pop­u­la­tion will reach 8 bil­lion by 2025 and 10 bil­lion by 2083. But the num­bers could vary widely, depend­ing on life expectancy, access to birth con­trol, infant mor­tal­ity rates and other factors.

In Uttar Pradesh, India — the most pop­u­lous state in the world’s second-most pop­u­lous coun­try — offi­cials said they would appoint seven girls born Mon­day to sym­bol­ize the 7 billion.

India, which strug­gles with a deeply held pref­er­ence for sons and a skewed sex ratio because of mil­lions of aborted female fetuses, is using the day to high­light that issue.

“It would be a fit­ting moment if the 7 bil­lionth baby is a girl born in rural India,” said Dr. Madhu Gupta, a gyne­col­o­gist. “It would help in bring­ing the global focus back on girls, who are sub­ject to inequal­ity and bias.”

Accord­ing to U.S. gov­ern­ment esti­mates, India has 893 girls for every 1,000 boys at birth, com­pared with 955 girls per 1,000 boys in the United States.

Mean­while, China, which at 1.34 bil­lion peo­ple is the world’s most pop­u­lous nation, said it would stand by its one-child pol­icy, a set of restric­tions launched three decades ago lim­it­ing most urban fam­i­lies to one child and most rural fam­i­lies to two.

“Over­pop­u­la­tion remains one of the major chal­lenges to social and eco­nomic devel­op­ment,” Li Bin, direc­tor of the State Pop­u­la­tion and Fam­ily Plan­ning Com­mis­sion, told the offi­cial Xin­hua News Agency. He said the pop­u­la­tion of China would hit 1.45 bil­lion in 2020.

While the Bei­jing gov­ern­ment says its strict fam­ily plan­ning pol­icy has helped pro­pel the country’s rapidly grow­ing econ­omy, it has also brought many problems.

Soon, demog­ra­phers say, there won’t be enough young Chi­nese to sup­port its enor­mous elderly pop­u­la­tion. China, like India, also has a highly skewed sex ratio, with aid groups say­ing sex-selective abor­tions have resulted in an esti­mated 43 mil­lion fewer girls than there should be, given the over­all population.

India, with 1.2 bil­lion peo­ple, is expected to over­take China around 2030, when the Indian pop­u­la­tion reaches an esti­mated 1.6 billion.

Posted by AP News on Oct 31 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.