Infant mortality rate | Definition & Facts | Britannica (original) (raw)
infant mortality rate, measure of human infant deaths in a group younger than one year of age. It is an important indicator of the overall physical health of a community. Preserving the lives of newborns has been a long-standing issue in public health, social policy, and humanitarian endeavours. High infant mortality rates are generally indicative of unmet human health needs in sanitation, medical care, nutrition, and education.
The infant mortality rate is an age-specific ratio used by epidemiologists, demographers, physicians, and social scientists to better understand the extent and causes of infant deaths. To compute a given year’s infant mortality rate in a certain area, one would need to know how many babies were born alive in the area during the period and how many babies who were born alive died before their first birthday during that time. The number of infant deaths is then divided by the number of infant births, and the results are multiplied by 1,000 so that the rate reflects the number of infant deaths per 1,000 births in a standardized manner. Alternately, the rate could be multiplied by 10,000 or 1,000,000, depending on the desired comparison level.
There are a number of causes of infant mortality, including poor sanitation, poor water quality, malnourishment of the mother and infant, inadequate prenatal and medical care, and use of infant formula as a breast milk substitute. Women’s status and disparities of wealth are also reflected in infant mortality rates. In areas where women have few rights and where there is a large income difference between the poor and the wealthy, infant mortality rates tend to be high. Contributing to the problem are poor education and limited access to birth control, both of which lead to high numbers of births per mother and short intervals between births. High-frequency births allow less recovery time for mothers and entail potential food shortages in poor families. When women are educated, they are more likely to give birth at later ages and to seek better health care and better education for their children, including their daughters.
More From Britannica infant and toddler health: Infant mortality
Poor sanitation and water quality
In least-developed countries (LDC) a primary cause of infant mortality is poor quality of water. Drinking water that has been contaminated by fecal material or other infectious organisms can cause life-threatening diarrhea and vomiting in infants. A lack of clean drinking water leads to dehydration and fluid volume depletion. The loss of large quantities of fluids and salts from the body can quickly kill an infant. Adequate clean water must also be available for hygiene to maintain the health of infants. Advocacy groups estimate that the deaths of several million children yearly could be prevented by the use of a simple low-cost oral rehydration solution.
Breastfeeding controversies
The use of infant formula has come under attack in both developing countries and LDCs as well as in the industrialized world. Many forms of infant formula start as powders that must be mixed with water to be used. The World Health Organization (WHO) has questioned the use of breast milk substitutes in poor families, particularly in areas where clean water is not available, because it may increase the risk of infant death.
In the 1970s the Nestlé Corporation was criticized by a number of groups for its distribution of infant formula to women in developing countries. The company distributed free samples of infant formula and marketed them to women as a more modern Western alternative to breast milk. Unfortunately, many women did not realize that their breast milk production would decrease or stop entirely when they started to rely on infant formula. Without breast milk, they had little choice but to continue to use the formula, often with disastrous results. Because the formula was expensive, poor families tried to stretch their supply by watering it down. That practice led to malnutrition, starvation, or digestive infections in the frequent cases in which the diluting water was not clean. In addition, because breastfeeding stimulates hormones that serve as a semieffective natural contraceptive, that benefit was lost with the switch to artificial infant formulas.
Low birth weight
Low birth weight is the single most significant characteristic associated with higher infant mortality. In industrialized countries, low birth weights are characteristic of premature births. However, in LDCs they more frequently occur at full term, because of a lack of adequate maternal nutrition or because of malaria, measles, or other infectious diseases, such as HIV. For a full-term infant, low birth weight is a weight less than 2,500 grams (5 pounds 8 ounces) at birth or a weight that is one standard deviation or more below the weight expected for that age in a reference population.
Chances of survival for a premature birth vary greatly depending on the available resources. Premature infants (born at less than 37 weeks gestation) have a higher risk of death not only because of low birth weight but also because their respiratory and digestive systems are not fully mature.
Prenatal care
Good prenatal care has been linked to reduced infant mortality. Ideally, prenatal care should begin as early in the pregnancy as possible, with visits to a health care provider every 4 weeks during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy, every 2 to 3 weeks for the next 8 weeks, and weekly thereafter until delivery. Using this formula, the appropriate number of prenatal visits for a 39-week pregnancy is 12. Maintaining such a schedule requires time, effort, and—most important—access to a system of affordable health care, which is lacking in many LDCs and even in some industrialized countries.
Race and infant mortality
The United States may be regarded as having several infant mortality rates: one for the white population, one for the Asian population, one for Native Americans, and another for African Americans. African American babies are nearly two and a half times more likely to die before their first birthday than are white babies. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control, infant mortality among African Americans in 2014 occurred at a rate of 10.93 deaths per 1,000 live births, nearly twice the national average of 5.82. Preterm delivery with low birth weight is the leading cause of infant death for African American infants, occurring at a rate that is more than three times greater than that for white Americans. Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is more than twice as common among American Indian and Alaska Natives than it is among non-Hispanic whites. Those differences stem from differences in health access, poverty, and other effects of racism. Rates of infant mortality among Chinese and Japanese Americans tend to be the lowest of all U.S. ethnic groups.
Conclusion
To lower infant mortality rates in LDCs, basic needs must be met: clean water, good sanitary conditions, adequate nutrition, education, and family planning are paramount. Health interventions designed to prevent preterm delivery and to improve prenatal care may also improve infant mortality rates. Communities can play an important part in this campaign by encouraging women to seek prenatal care in the first trimester of pregnancy and by making care available. In industrialized countries the focus must also include eliminating disparities in access to health care.