Infant mortality

“ Wherever infant mortality is highest, there child mortality is highest, and the mortality of boys and girls at puberty and during the early years of adolescence when the body is preparing for and becoming capable of parenthood. The evil conditions that cause infant mortality are thus proved to be far-reaching and much wider in their effects than any but the students of the subject have yet realized. ”

“ The first direct steps towards the reduction of infant mortality were directed against epidemic or summer diarrhœa. Medical officers of health have always been required in their annual reports to summarize the vital statistics in their districts; and since 1905 a more detailed statement of infant mortality during each part of infancy has been required. ”

“ Yet it is hardly surprising that under such conditions infant mortality is very great, and, indeed, all through life in this doctorless land astonishing numbers are carried off by diseases we should hardly consider dangerous. ”

“ But we are not justified in keeping up our infant mortality, if we find, as we do, that for every diseased child whom they destroy they kill many who were healthy at birth and damage for life many more. ”

“ The study of Infant Mortality is now engrossing the thought and attention of many earnest men and women. It is most difficult to get vital statistics from any non-Christian lands in order to give comparative tables. In comparing the mortality statistics of the United States for 1890 and 1909 we find marked improvement in the “opportunity for life and health” granted to American children. ”

“ Let us therefore examine, whether the collected observations of medical authors will not illuminate many dark and defective parts of the publick registers, respecting infant mortality. Infants are exempt from a multitude of the acute and chronic diseases of adults: they rarely suffer so early in life from hereditary diseases, cares, passions of mind, painful impulses of retentive memory, severe study, intemperance, hard labour, the inclemency and vicissitudes of the seasons, and so on. ”

“ Infant Mortality.—No elaborate argument is necessary to prove that the present infant mortality, in every civilized country, is too high. It is conceded by every authority interested in the subject, no matter what explanation he offers, or what system he advances as a solution of the problem. ”

“ But we must recognize that the minimum so obtained is nevertheless still too large, because among the consorts of the long-lived fathers and mothers, some died early with the result of increasing the infant mortality. The infant mortality with the 85-year-old fathers and mothers is found to be 11.2%-15.4%, average about 13%. The total child-mortality reaches 31-32%, of which the 13% make about 40%. ”

“ Grace L. Meigs, head of the hygiene division of this bureau, has been undertaken as a direct corollary to the infant mortality inquiry. The sickness or death of the mother inevitably lessens the chances of the baby for life and health. A large proportion of the deaths of babies occur in the first days and weeks of life, and these early deaths can be prevented only through proper care of the mother before and at the birth of her baby. ”

“ Thus we are brought face to face with another problem of infant mortality. Are we to check the infant mortality rate among the feeble-minded and aid the unfortunate offspring to grow up, a menace to the civilized community even when not actually certifiable as mentally defective or not obviously imbecile? ”

“ The effect of this is not yet fully apparent in a decreased death-rate, but there can be little doubt that within a very few years it will have its result. For instance, one third of the infant mortality is due to prenatal conditions, congenital diseases which afflict the child at birth, and which mean either speedy death or a lingering, crippled life. ”

“ The infant mortality is lowest among the children of young mothers between twenty and twenty-five years of age, though it has been found out that "delay in child-bearing after that age penalizes the children." ”

“ The infant mortality has been over 170 per 1,000. The Social Union of Dundee reported in 1905 that of 885 children born to 240 working mothers no fewer than 520, or 59 per cent., died—and almost all of them were under five years of age. ”

“ Infant mortality bears heaviest upon male babies. It is largely, as I have so often said, a male infanticide, notably contrasting with the practice of deliberate female infanticide which is known in so many times and places. In lowering the infant mortality we shall reduce this disproportion of male deaths, and shall make for the survival of a larger number of men. Bring down the infant mortality to proper limits and we shall have in adult life possible male partners for a large number of women who are now without such because of the male infanticide of twenty and thirty years ago. ”

“ But, as the highest rate of infant mortality has usually been in large towns, so has the diminution of deaths been the greatest there. It is the object of the following paper to take a cursory view of those causes which tend to cut short the career of human beings in the very threshold of existence. Nor can I conceive any subject of higher importance than the study of medical statistics, and especially of that branch of it, which leads to a more correct estimate of the sources of infant mortality. ”

“ In the civilised countries of Europe, at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, of every 1000 infants, from 100 to 300 die, on the average, every year. The attainable minimum of infant mortality, under conditions practically realisable to-day, may be regarded as about 70 per 1000. In families in which exceptionally favourable conditions prevail, the infant mortality rate is even lower than the figure just stated ”

“ JOHNSTOWN, PA. INTRODUCTION The term infant mortality, used technically, applies to deaths of babies under 1 year of age. An infant mortality rate is a statement of the number of deaths of such infants in a given year per 1,000 births in the same year. ”

“ Statistical data prove beyond question that methods of feeding have a great influence upon infant mortality. The death-rate is higher in proportion to the degree to which the mode of nutrition diverges from the natural method of suckling by the child’s own mother; the death-rate is higher in children suckled by wet-nurses than in those suckled by their own mothers ”

“ The infant mortality rate in the United States has steadily decreased during this century and is now the lowest in our history-but it is not low enough. Statistically, a child born in this country today can expect 73.2 years of healthy and productive living, but many of our children still die in childhood or infancy. ”

“ Only after stupendous exertion, for instance, has the serious and continued mortality among infants excited general attention; and the curious, widespread indifference to the recommendations of recent Royal Commissions on the Poor Law and the Care of the Feeble-minded indicates that, were infant mortality controllable by legislation, such legislation would still fail of its object unless it were also realised that a child’s hold on life is practically dependent upon parental care, and is intimately associated with maternal nutrition before its birth. ”

“ In considering these questions, it must be remembered that the causes of infant mortality are also the causes of adult mortality, only in a less degree; and that the health of a delicate infant is the most sensitive measure which we possess of those influences which are deleterious to health, either in infancy or adult life.
The first of these deleterious influences in the order of time, and unquestionably also of importance, is heredity. A very large proportion of all children born into the world are either weaklings or invalids from the beginning. They are born wrong. ”

“ If the infant mortality problem is to be solved on the basis of knowledge and reason, it must be recognized that sanitation and hygiene can not take the place of eugenics any more than eugenics can dispense with sanitation and hygiene. It must be recognized that the death-rate in childhood is largely selective, and that the most effective way to cut it down is to endow the children with better constitutions. ”

“ The infant mortality rates in this report, however, have not been computed on the usual basis, but for the purpose of securing greater accuracy in measuring the incidence of death this bureau has considered, in making the computation, only so many of the babies born in the year 1911 as could be located by its agents, and has compared with this number the number of deaths within this group of babies who died within one year of birth, even though some of these deaths may have occurred during the calendar year 1912. ”

“ Thus the average infant mortality for 1896 to 1905 among eight "textile towns," where on the average 43 per cent, of married women below the age of 35 were employed, was 182 per thousand; whereas the average rate among eight "non-textile" towns, where only 3.1 per cent, of this class of women were employed, was 150, that is, over one sixth less. The average infant death rate for all England then was 152. ”

“ There is no system in the treatment of mothers; and often not the most elementary care in the treatment of the infants. It is scarcely surprising that though the general infant mortality is excessively high, the infant mortality of the workhouse babies is two or three times as high as that among the general population. ”

“ Our all too numerous diseases with their premature deaths constitute another heavy loss. The waste of human life force in the infant mortality alone is enormous. The cost of medicine, of doctors, of undertakers, of graveyard rents; the loss of services of those prematurely taken from us—all this is a groaning burden of pain and loss amounting easily to another ten per cent. ”

“ C 65 Figure C 65 enables us to examine into the influence exercised by a longer or shorter interval after the preceding birth on the vitality of a child, according as to whether the child was not breast-fed at all or only moderately or amply so. The black oblongs demonstrate that the average infant mortality falls regularly and decisively according to the length of time between the birth of the children considered and their predecessors. The average mortality of infants who are born in rapid succession—under one year, one to one and a quarter years, amounts to over 25 and to 22 per cent. ”

“ When we examine into the infant mortality prevailing amongst different classes, we find the proportion existing between the death-rate of the children of the nobility, and the general death-rate up to one year, to be as 3 to 8. ”

“ We have, in fact, travelled the same road as, but in the opposite direction from, those who in the last ten years have conducted the campaign against Infant Mortality. It was about ten or twelve years ago that many people were suddenly horrified to learn that out of every 1,000 children born in England and Wales, about 150 died before they have lived twelve months. A vigorous campaign against Infant Mortality by means largely of what is called Infant Welfare work followed. ”

“ It does not at all follow that even the Rutland 103 represents the possible minimum of infant mortality. One learns from the Register-General’s returns for 1891 that among the causes of death specified in the three counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, and Hereford, where infant mortality is scarcely half what it is in the three vilest towns in England in this respect, Preston, Leicester, and Blackburn, the number of children killed by injury at birth is three times as great as it is in these same towns. ”

“ According to Dr Farr, the northern countries of Europe show a much lower infant death-rate than the southern ones. Infant mortality is lowest in Norway, and highest in High Bavaria, where 404 infants per 1000 die in their first year. In New York, in 1869, the mortality amongst infants under one year old was 27·4 per cent. ”

“ This is well, since statistics show an alarming increase in the rate of infant mortality during the early years of life, and anything which can be done to check this lamentable and often avoidable waste of valuable life should be resorted to with care and attention. ”

“ Female babies suffered from a higher mortality rate than male babies, contrary to the worldwide norm. State media reported that infant mortality rates in rural areas were 27 percent higher for girls than boys and that neglect was one factor in their lower survival rate. ”

“ If the interpretation which we have given is correct, the conclusion is inevitable that child mortality is primarily a problem of eugenics, and that all other factors are secondary. There is found to be no warrant for the statement so often repeated in one form or another, that "the fundamental cause of the excessive rate of infant mortality in industrial communities is poverty, inadequate incomes, and low standards of living." ”

“ It may be that discouragements from unhappy family conditions or worry over economic disabilities sap the mother's vitality. It may be that taints of blood doom the child and the mother. Whatever the cause, it is reason for deep concern that a great state, like New York, for example, has a rate of infant mortality nearly twice as high as that of New Zealand and ranking eleventh in the twenty-three states of the registration area in which the death of babies is set down with care. ”