Our World

U.S. has second worst newborn death rate in modern world

I was completely shocked when I read this article on CNN.com about newborn death rates in the United States and other places of the world. I was aware that especially Africa had problems with high infant mortality rates, but I was most definitely unaware of the high newborn death rates occurring in the United States. According to the article, the US is the second worst in the modern world stating that American babies are three times more likely to die in their first month as children born in Japan. I was caught off guard when I read this because I thought education, health care, and services were advanced in the US compared to other parts of the world.

The article explains patterns and explanations for high newborn mortality. Latvia is the only country with a higher death rate for newborns than the United States. In Latvia there are 6 deaths for every 1,000 live births. The report expresses their findings of higher newborn death rates among U.S. minorities and disadvantaged groups.

I found this article to be interesting also because it relates quite well to the GIS activity we are currently working on. The article states that Sub-Saharan Africa is still the worst place to be a mother or a child. Unfortunately, infant mortality is easily preventable, however, the people of places like Sub-Saharan Africa are not well educated nor do they have the right tools or services to prevent such a horrible tragedy.

In industrialized nations babies being born prematurely are the reason for most deaths, while in the developing world half of newborn deaths are from infection, tetanus, and diarrhea. This proves that it is important that people get educated not only to avoid having children they can’t take care of, but also to obtain jobs that could possibly assist mothers in the process of raising a healthy child.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/parenting/05/08/mothers.index/

posted by Anonymous @ 10/26/2006 07:16:00 PM