If God allows evil to exist because of free will and therefore suffering and disease exists for punishment, what's the point of babies still suffing from incurable birth defects and lethal neonatal illnesses?

Even if I have mixed thoughts on it philosophically, I still generally understand the idea of the ability to do evil and have others suffer for it being needed for ture free will. What I've never understood though is why it's still so common for babies to die unavoidable deaths when there's both nothing they could've done to deserve it nor any way to repent. Over 2 million infants die within the first 28 days of life [source] for what reason would innocents still need to suffer in such numbers when no one is at fault? What part is someone supposed to play in God's plan by only living painfully for a few days before dying?