How to Prevent Infant Deaths

According to the New York Time’s April 6^th, 2009 report, even though infant mortality rate is declining in the United States, but still there are about 28,000 children under the age of one die every year.

When we talk about the infant mortality rate, it is important to understand what it really means? For example, what does the “rate” mean and what age does it refer to?

The infant mortality rate is defined as the number of infant’s death under one year of age per 1000 live births in any given population. It is different than the Neonatal mortality rate which is the number of infant’s death less than 28 days of age per 1000 live births. According to the CBSnews website, the US Infant mortality rate for combined male and female is 6.26 deaths per 1000 live births estimated for 2009. It is interesting to note that male infant mortality rate is higher than the female mortality rate which is 6.94 per thousands males versus 5.55 females per thousands.

Historically, the leading causes of infant deaths in the United States and other countries include sudden infant death syndrome, respiratory distress syndrome, congenital anomalies, problems related to low-birth-weight, dehydration and diaharea.

Even though the infant mortality rate in US looks better, however according to the 2004 (latest data available), the United States still had a higher rate than 28 countries which include Hungry, Singapore and Japan among others.

It is critical to continue to improve the infant mortality rate and come up with creative solutions to combat the issue. Deaths of infants are preventable. The United States Department of Health & Human Services has some key initiatives in progress to address this.

1- With a funding of $98 million, “Healthy Start” program provides prenatal health care in more than 100 communities with higher-than-average infant mortality rates.

2- Medicaid to provide access to prenatal care for eligible mothers of low income families.

3- Toll-Free Prenatal Care Hotline.

4- Childhood immunization initiatives to provide childhood immunizations with 90 percent or more of America’s toddlers receiving vaccines under the age of 2.

In addition to these services, HHS also offers several other outreach and educational efforts to help reduce the infant mortality rates.

In April of 2007, Mayssa Nehlawi wrote an influential article on this issue for FW: magazine, titled “Preventing Infant Mortality”. She provided some very useful insights of preventing Infant mortality.

These suggestions include promoting awareness campaigns by targeting mothers and caregivers, encouraging maternity after the age of 20, encouraging adequate birth intervals to give enough time for the mothers to recover, improve the quality of medical care for both mothers and infants and encourage maternal education.

Even though, the author Mayssa Nehlawi’s audience is Syria, these suggestions can be very well applied for any other countries including the United States.

It is important that the information and suggestions to improve infant mortality rate is widely available, especially for the mothers who live in the areas with higher-than-average infant mortality rates.