View report page

13
INFANTILE MORTALITY.
Infantile mortality, by which term is meant the proportion
of deaths under one year to births registered, is an important
factor in vital statistics. The deaths under one year in
Kensington, which in 1898 were 655, had been in the pre—
ceding three years 624, 656, and 609, successively. Of the
655 deaths, 66 (or 10.07 per cent.) were of illegitimate
children; the ratio of deaths of illegitimate children to
births registered as illegitimate (182) being 363 per 1,000.
Of the 655 deaths, 149 occurred within one month after
birth, including 87 in the first week, 18 in the second week,
20 in the third week, and 24 in the fourth week. In the
second month of life there were 69 deaths ; in the third month
58 deaths ; in the fourth month 64 deaths ; in the fifth month
47 deaths; in the sixth month 42 deaths ; in the seventh
month 39 deaths ; in the eighth month 33 deaths; in the
ninth month 45 deaths; in the tenth month 42 deaths ; in the
eleventh month 36 deaths; and in the twelfth month 31
deaths.
It is somewhat of an opprobrium to Kensington that the
rate of infantile mortality, calculated upon the basis of the
number of deaths under one year to 1,000 births registered, is
invariably above that of London as a whole. The year to
which this report relates was no exception to the rule, for
whilst the deaths under one year in London were at the rate of
167 per 1,000 births * (the rate in England and Wales being
161), the corresponding ratio in Kensington, as a whole, was
180 ; the comparative numbers in 1897 having been 159 and
166. The rate differed greatly in different parts of the parish,
the bad pre-eminence of which, in this respect, is due to the
excessive infantile mortality in certain districts in North
* The London average rate in the preceding ten years, 1888-97, was 151 per
1,000 . the rate in 1898 exceeded that recorded in any year since 1871. In the
33 great towns in England and Wales the rate was 178, and in the 67 towns
next in order of importance, 173 per 1,000 births.