World Health Day 2025: Significance and theme

World Health Day is celebrated on April 7, every year to mark the anniversary of the founding of WHO in 1948. The day is celebrated annually and each year to draw attention to a specific health topic of concern to people all over the world.

World Health Day 2025: Theme for this year

The celebrations will kick off a year-long campaign on maternal and newborn health. The campaign, titled Healthy beginnings, hopeful futures, will urge governments and the health community to ramp up efforts to end preventable maternal and newborn deaths, and to prioritise women’s longer-term health and well-being.

WHO and partners will also share useful information to support healthy pregnancies and births, and better postnatal health.

But WHO says that this task is critical. Based on the currently published estimates, quite tragically, close to 3,00,000 women lose their life due to pregnancy or childbirth each year, while over 2 million babies die in their first month of life and around 2 million more are stillborn. That’s roughly 1 preventable death every 7 seconds.

Based on the current trends, a staggering 4 out of 5 countries are off-track to meet targets for improving maternal survival by 2030. 1 in 3 will fail to meet targets for reducing newborn deaths.

Why listening to women and supporting families are important

Women and families across the world need high-quality care that supports them physically and emotionally, before, during and after birth.

WHO says that health systems must evolve to manage the many health issues that impact mother and newborn health , and these not only include direct obstetric complications but also mental health conditions, non-communicable diseases and family planning.