Infant Mortality

Infant mortality is the death of infants in their first year of life. There are many causes of infant mortality. Some predominant causes include congenital malformation, infection and SIDS, while infanticide, abuse, abandonment, and neglect may also be a factor of infant mortality. Infant mortality is measured by infant mortality rate, which is the number of newborns that die under one year old divided by the number of live births during a given year. Sometimes the infant mortality rate is also called the infant death rate. This infant mortality rate is reported by the number of live newborns dying under on year old per one thousand live births. This is done so different countries can compare their rates. I will be addressing two main topics for infant mortality rate:

What is being done to prevent infant mortality?

What are some current rates around the globe?

These are the two topics I found most interesting to get more information on.

What is being done to

prevent infant mortality?

Over the last fifty years there has been an incredible decrease in the infant mortality rate. The chance of a newborn baby dying before the age five is only a seven percent risk as of the year 2000. That's a huge jump, considering a ten percent chance in the 1950's. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has formatted a wide range of programs to help prevent infant mortality. Some programs designed to prevent the rate through access to prenatal information are Healthy Start, Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). There are also toll-free prenatal care hotline's and childhood immunization initiatives. The HHS also has programs to promote healthy choices to reduce mortality risks. Some of these include the folic acid campaign, the "back to sleep" campaign, reducing mother-to-child HIV transmission, Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant and by reducing teen pregnancy.

What are some current rates around the globe?

The entire globe, including both less developed countries and more developed countries, declined considerably between 1960 and 2001.In 1960 the global infant mortality rate was 198 per 1000 while in 2001 there were only 83 per 1000. Although the overall numbers are dropping, there is a difference in the less and more developed countries. Statistics say that less developed countries have about 17 times of the amount of infant mortality than the more developed countries do.