Post #5: Infant Mortality Rates

It turns out that Canada has a considerably high infant mortality rate of 5.6 out of every 1000 live births. Before discussing the main causes of these deaths, it is first noted that there are two terms for infant mortality. The first is neonatal death, which is the death of an infant under 28 days of age and the second is post-neonatal death, which is the death of an infant between 28 days and 1 year of age. The main causes of these deaths are respiratory distress syndrome, short gestation and low birth weight. These causes account for 62% of neonatal deaths. There are 2 leading causes of deth for post-nonatal death which are sudden infant syndom and congenital anomalies, which account for 26% and 23% of deaths respectively.
The rate of infant death is high compared to other regions such as Japan, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, France and Denmark which have infancy deaths of 3.8, 4.0, 4.0, 4.7, 4.9, and 5.2 respectively. However Canada does have a lower infancy rate that New Zealand and the United States which has infancy death rates of 7.4 and 7.8 respectively. Thus in places like New Zealand, the United States and even Canada, serious problems are still present, one of them being low birth weight. Including live birth weights under 500 g changes the infant mortality rates, and so that also has to be taken into account. Including this or not including this will either increase or decrease and infant mortality rate and accounts for the variations in infant mortality analyses.
I thought it was especially interesting that Canada (aside from Japan) has had the highest decline in infant mortality rate, which has lowered from 27.3 per 1000 in 1960. This article had strictly quantitative data. It is also noted that this article does not talk about direct or indirect infanticide. If such things are done before 1 year of age, these also contribute to infant mortality rates, correct? I think it’s important to know if this is something done often and where in the world it takes place.

note: the article and picture are from the following site:
www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/meas-haut/mu_c_e.html