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month of life (neonatal deaths) and those occurring between 1-12
months of age.
DISTRIBUTING OF INFANT DEATHS
Figure 1.
Trends in these rates over the past quarter of a century are shown
in Figure 2, Which well illustrates that the greatest reduction has been
made in the death rate for infants aged between 1 and 12 months.
Neonatal deaths and still-births have responded to our efforts less
dramatically.
There is growing realisation that the causes of most neonatal
deaths are vastly different from those which result in the deaths of older
infants, and that they are more closely related to the causes of death
just prior to birth. This has led to the conception of a "peri-natal
mortality," a rate based on the total of deaths occurring before, during,
or shortly after birth.
Figure 3 demonstrates the trends in loss of infant life over the
same period, dividing deaths into the "peri-natal" (pre-natal+
neonatal) and 12 month periods. It shows most vividly that our
attack must b concentrated on the peri-natal deaths, particularly
since these have tended to rise in recent years.
These peri-natal losses cannot be prevented by our infant welfare
services but car, only be attacked by more intensive research into
their causation, and the application of knowledge so gained in our
ante-natal clinics and maternity hospitals.
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