The lives of more than a million babies a year could be saved in developing countries if mothers were given access to simple, low-cost health measures such as vitamins, anti-malarial drugs and aspirin, a new analysis suggests.

The authors of the analysis, published in the Lancet journal, estimate that 476,000 infant deaths and 566,000 stillbirths could be avoided each year if a handful of measures, mostly before birth, were fully implemented in 81 countries with low and middle income.

Globally, the number of neonatal deaths of babies dying within 28 days has more than halved in the three decades between 1990 and 2020, from 5 million to 2.4 million.

But across the developing world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, the numbers remain high.

A UN report published this week shows that the rate of progress has stalled since 2015 due to reduced investment.