Every year, 2·9 million newborn babies die from largely preventable causes, and 2·6 million more are stillborn. The recent Lancet Every Newborn Series paints the clearest picture to date of a newborn’s chance of survival and the steps that must be taken to end preventable newborn deaths and stillbirths. One of the papers summarized recent collaborative work between lead researchers, WHO and other UN agencies on trends in stillbirth and neonatal mortality rates and on causes of neonatal deaths, and proposed new targets for the post-2015 era:

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2814%2960496-7/fulltext

Following on from this work, my team recently released detailed estimates of country-level trends in causes of neonatal deaths from 2000 to 2012:

http://www.who.int/gho/child_health/mortality/mortality_causes_region_text/en/