In 2012 alone about 16,000 children died in their first month of life because of the devastating health effects of oil spills, according to a study by the University of Navarra.

By the time your child learns to crawl, tens of thousands of babies will have died in Nigeria. In 2012 alone, about 16,000 children died in their first month of life because of the devastating health effects of oil spills. These are preventable deaths. Some 70 per cent, about 11,000 children, would have survived at least their first year if they had not been exposed to hydrocarbons in their daily lives, according to the study The effect of oil spills on infant mortality: Evidence from Nigeria, published by the Navarra Center for International Development.

Every year thousands of newborns die breathing and drinking hydrocarbons that attack their bodies. Some carry diseases from their conception because of contaminated sperm from their fathers and others contract diseases in-utero through the umbilical cord or their mothers’ tissue.

After years of research, we know that oil is harmful and kills. But knowing how, who, and where it kills is only possible to know if time, trust and resources are dedicated to scientific research that reveals the hidden reality. Discovering a problem is the first step in working and fighting it. Investing in research that uses empirical-analytical methods is critical to fighting poverty and preventing alarming human tragedies.

Nigeria, one of the richest countries in oil reserves, recorded 6,637 spills between 2005 and 2015. Whether due to maintenance errors, pipeline vandalism or fuel theft, spills abound in the country. The study investigates the effects that they cause in families living close to fuel reserves.

Swiss researchers Anna Bruederle and Roland Hodler of the University of St. Gallen, whose study serves as a precursor to the present study, concluded that oil spills double the mortality rate during the first month of life for mothers who became pregnant after a spill, while the effects on more advanced pregnancies were much less pronounced. They also found that surviving children are underweight.

Pioneering research like this is an example of the need to invest in quality studies to discover hidden realities. Only with empirical-analytical methods can we obtain the data from which an opinion based in reality can be formed.

We cannot find effective solutions to global problems such as poverty if we do not know the causes. In order to prevent human tragedies such as the deaths of thousands of oil-contaminated children in Nigeria, we must first be sure that this is indeed the case, for which scientific research is increasingly necessary.

David Soler Crespo is an assistant researcher at the Navarra Center for International Development of the Institute for Culture and Society at the University of Navarra. The center is made up of an interdisciplinary team of economists, political scientists, sociologists and experts from other disciplines who strive to alleviate extreme poverty in the world's poorest countries.