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INFANT MORTALITY.
The infant mortality at 14.94 deaths per thousand live
births is less than half of that for the whole country. Last year
it was 11.73, as far as I am aware the lowest ever recorded anywhere.
It may be of interest that in view of the publication in
an eminent medical journal of an infant mortality rate of 13.6
per thousand, the editor's attention was then drawn to that of
Merton and Morden. For some reason the editor of the journal
was of the opinion that the numbers involved were not great
enough to express correctly a true infant mortality rate. If we
total the births and the infant deaths for the past two years and
work out the infant mortality rate for the two-year period we
have 1,808 births and a total of 24 deaths, which gives an infant
mortality rate of 13.26 on the combined figures, a rate which
would seem to merit special attention.
The age at death of these infants follows the familiar
pattern of previous years. Study of the appended list with the
causes reveals that all except two of them were neo-natal deaths,
that is to say within the first month of life.
Deaths in infants outside the carrying over of damage in
child birth and congenital deformities have practically disappeared.
Of the 11 neo-natal deaths prematurity figures as a
cause in six of them,, over 50%. When we discover and understand
the mechanism which starts off labour, and can postpone
the starting time in these cases for a few weeks only, our
infant mortality rate might even reach new low levels. The
reduction in the infant mortality rate from 130 per thousand
to below 30 in the past three decades has very largely been
achieved by improvement in infant care. Any further reduction
has got to come in the neo-natal group, and prevention of
premature labour and a lowering of the incidence of the
developmental defects offer the obvious field for further
progress.