U.S. Newborn Survival Rate Ranks Low

[Judi Lynn]

U.S. Newborn Survival Rate Ranks Low

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 9, 2006
Filed at 3:56 a.m. ET

CHICAGO (AP) -- America may be the world's superpower, but its survival rate for newborn babies ranks near the bottom among modern nations, better only than Latvia.

Among 33 industrialized nations, the United States is tied with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with a death rate of nearly 5 per 1,000 babies, according to a new report. Latvia's rate is 6 per 1,000.

''We are the wealthiest country in the world, but there are still pockets of our population who are not getting the health care they need,'' said Mary Beth Powers, a reproductive health adviser for the U.S.-based Save the Children, which compiled the rankings based on health data from countries and agencies worldwide.

The U.S. ranking is driven partly by racial and income health care disparities. Among U.S. blacks, there are 9 deaths per 1,000 live births, closer to rates in developing nations than to those in the industrialized world.
(snip/...)

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Infant-Mortality.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[noel adamson]

1. Shameless Demons from Hell have brought us to this...

...and done it in the name of God. Bush, Cheney and the rest with their duped religious zealot followers. It will be no consolation that they will roast in some hell or even that they are insatiable now in their lack of compassion and inability to experience love and happiness. They will never know peace. The best punishment would be that they grow a conscience and have to live with it.

[Chrisduhfur]

54. uhh interesting take on it...

I think.

[noel adamson]

64. I could have just said...

...miserable MFs

[Vidar]

2. Why would we expect our infants to do any better than the rest of us?

[achtung_circus]

3. Shouldn't they do as well as the rest of the world? nt

[Vidar]

4. Of course, but our health care system is broken for all but the rich.

[mom cat]

6. And many of those rich people got righ from running insurance

companies that make obscene profits. The amount we spend on healthcare could do some good if one third of the money were not siphoned off into the insurance company coffers. Universal health care is the only solution. Privitization has us deep in a health care crisis: lousy care at exorbitant rates!

[bleedingheart]

5. blame this on the lack of universal healthcare

with so many people in this nation uninsured, think of the poor women that go without medical care. They spend an entire pregnancy not knowing the health and welfare of their child and they are not taken care of as well.

Additionally the statistic could also be high because of the number of immigrants that come who also have not had adequate prenatal care from Mexico.

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. African babies 'dying at birth'

9 May 2006

Some two million babies born every year in the developing world die on the first day of their lives, the Save the Children charity has said.

A report by the charity says most die from preventable causes, such as infections, a difficult birth or low birth weight.

It says many of the lives could be saved by simple, cheap techniques.

The charity also found it is safest to be a mother in Scandinavian countries - and most dangerous in African ones.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4752913.stm


So where are all the right to lifers in regards to Africa? I guess their too busy cutting the funding to organizations that might dare to mention the word abortion, to bother with preventing the deaths of 2 million newborns per year.

[Kutjara]

8. We're not a hell of a lot better here at home.

Someone posted figures on DU earlier today of infant mortality in the US and we came out about the same as Latvia (5 in 1,000). For African-Americans the figure is 9 in 1,000 (similar to some third world countries). Take these figures, the ones you mention in your post and the children that die worldwide from preventable poverty-related causes every day (over 30,000), and it's clear that 'pro-life' campaigners couldn't give a shit about life. They are pro-control.

Or maybe its only white, American life that is sacred.

edit: sundry typos

[ClintonTyree]

10. That's the answer right there.........

it's only white American life that is sacred to them, little black babies don't count. The American "pro-lifers" silence on subjects like this is deafening. :grr:

[REP]

9. Good Thing the US Doesn't Fund International Birth Control!

Thank god that those women went through pregnancy, childbirth and then the death of their newborns rather than have access to birth control! I'm not sure if the article mentions the high rate of infection and other complications (including death) for the women undergoing those births, but it's ghastly as well. Teach those sluts to live in a poor country!

[Missy M]

11. Antibiotics, proper diet and people trained for child birth....

seems like a relatively simple way to prevent much of the problems in Africa. If only our money could go to that cause, instead of killing and destruction. Of course the pro-lifers support the war so not a peep from them.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

25. Sounds like access to those things...

Is what is needed here, too. Too many folks cannot afford that access. I know I cannot, but then, I won't be having babies anytime soon.

[greekspeak]

12. Hey...once those little s*&ts are outta that womb they get Original Sin!

They become just another sinful human full of sin and sin and more sin. Fornication. You know. EVIL!! Only in the womb does it matter. There the baby is precious and special. Outside it becomes an evil welfare vacuum. :sarcasm:

[skipos]

13. Is there another explanation other that

lack of good healthcare for many Americans? I am blown away by these statistics.

[DBoon]

24. yes there is another explanation

the overall impoverishment of large parts of our population contributes to this.

I mean impoverishment in addition to poor health care.

Worse food, more stress, less stable families, longer working hours, less support from a extended family for new mothers - these all contribute too

[skipos]

27. We also rank high for number of cesarean sections? Any relation? nt

[LeftyMom]

61. One thing almost all the better ranking countries have in common is a

system that emphasizes midwifery, often combined with homebirth, over obstetric hospital birth and then higher breastfeeding rates. It's safer for low risk mother/child pairs to birth at home rather than in the hospital, due to lower section rates, lesser infections and higher breastfeeding rates.

In the US obstetricians practice with thier malpractice insurer's requirements in the forefront of thier mind and as a result, too many labors are induced, overmanaged and then terminated in c-section, which puts babies and mothers at risk.

Edit: This is also socioeconomic- poorer mothers are more likely to be induced and/or sectioned and are less likely to breastfeed. Often doctors and other medical staff are dismissive or hostile toward young women or women of color who choose natural birth compared to thier treatment of socially approved mothers (ie white married professional women in thier thirties.)

[Ilsa]

14. "...economically diverse..." In other words, we have lots of very

rich folks and lots of very poor folks. And the gap is widening further.

[area51]

15. "pockets of our population"

It's a lot more than just "pockets". Basically, complete healthcare is out of the reach of all but the ultra-wealthy. Far past time for the govt. to stop stealing our tax dollars & throwing them at the military, & establish universal healthcare like the civilized countries have.

[sasquatch]

16. U.S. Newborn Survival Rate Ranks Low

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060509/ap_on_he_me/infant_mortality

CHICAGO - America may be the world's superpower, but its survival rate for newborn babies ranks near the bottom among modern nations, better only than Latvia.

Among 33 industrialized nations, the United States is tied with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with a death rate of nearly 5 per 1,000 babies, according to a new report. Latvia's rate is 6 per 1,000.

:eyes:

So much for being "Pro-Life" huh?

[AzDar]

17. Another day, another horrifying, embarrassing statistic..... n/t

[depakid]

65. and the infant mortality rate's been rising-

after falling throughout the 20th Century.

That's pretty well the bellwether measurement of a nation's health, so I guess that's not surprising.

One of the benefits of the "contract on America."

[eyesroll]

18. I do have to wonder, though -- when is it a late miscarriage, vs. when

is it a preemie death? How does that affect statistics?

Doctors in the U.S. try to save babies at increasingly younger gestational ages -- are babies born at 22 weeks, who die minutes later, in other countries (perhaps where NICUs aren't as common and there is no chance of survival) considered premature babies, or late-term miscarriages?

[Cerridwen]

34. A link to a copy of the report

It looks as though the researchers actually took into account such things as medical intervention availability, the health of the mother, the education of the mother, pre-natal care quality and availability, clean drinking water, cases of maternal anemia, women's participation on their nation's government, access to pre-natal, natal and post-natal education and care and quality of care and education, and so forth and so on.

They even went so far as to group countries based on their "development" status and evaluate the statistics based on the country's standing, i.e. a more developed nation should have few infant/maternal deaths whereas a less developed nation should have higher rates.

http://www.savethechildren.org/publications/SOWM_2006_final.pdf



edit: spelling

[Patiod]

36. We are also creating a lot more premies with IVF

Multiples carry an inherent risk of premature birth and/or low birth weight, both of which raise the risk of infant death.

Eyesroll's comment about gestational age is also a factor -- I recently had to go dig up stats on infant mortality at different gestational ages, and those who compile the stats acknowledge the problem.

Not that we don't need better health care, but infant mortality stats have way too much noise in them to use them as a good indicator.

[frankenforpres]

19. this is a bogus stat

eyesroll points out why


not comparing apples with apples

[raccoon]

21. Good point. I looked back at his post.

Wonder how many stats we hear every day are bogus stats?

Probably at least 50%.

And THAT'S a bogus stat; I just made it up. :silly:

[Lars39]

22. You need to read the article.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

28. No. Her post is just (plausible, I admit) speculation.

She didn't try to pass her musings as fact. YOU did.

[frankenforpres]

29. i did read the article

i have seen articles like this before.


let me digress a little. i am pro national health care. one of my arguments used to be that we had higher infant mortality rates than in europe, but the more i looked into this, i couldnt convince myself that it was true (because the stats are compiled differently; even within the US in time it seems because of tech increases)

[Cerridwen]

35. Now read the report

http://www.savethechildren.org/publications/SOWM_2006_final.pdf

[frankenforpres]

38. i read the report

i could not find the methodology.

edit: from wiki:

Comparing statistics for IMR across countries can be a useful indicator of their level of health and development, but the method for calculating IMR often varies widely between countries based on the way they define a live birth. The World Health Organization defines a live birth as any born human being who demonstrates independent signs of life, including breathing, muscle movement, or heartbeat. Many countries, however, including certain European states and Japan, only count as live births cases where an infant breathes at birth, which makes their reported IMR numbers somewhat lower and raises their rates of perinatal mortality.

[Cerridwen]

39. Start on page 35 n/t

[frankenforpres]

41. we are not communicating

i went back and looked at that. it does not address my primary concern. what does japan (for example) consider a live birth? i could have just missed

[raccoon]

20. Well, at least these women didn't have abortions.

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[DBoon]

23. and what was it in 1970?

I bet our ranking has been dropping since 1980 or so, just like our ranking in terms of overall life span.

30 years of faith-based social darwinism under reagan/bush/bush has taken us to 3rd world status

[enigma000]

30. In 1940 the infant mortality rate was 47 per 1000 births

http://www.dph.sf.ca.us/PHP/MCH/PerinatalStats122005/USPerinatalCharts122005.pdf

In 1980 it was 12 per 1000

[DBoon]

40. That's the raw number

I was looking for relative ranking with respect to other nations, and how that may have shifted over time.

[enigma000]

42. Try this

Health Infant mortality
– OECD avg. declined from 36.3 deaths/1000 live births in
1960 to 6.5 deaths/1000 live births in 2000
– US avg. declined from 26.0 deaths/1000 live births in 1960
to 6.9 deaths/1000 live births in 2000

http://www.oecdwash.org/PDFILES/health2003_wash.pdf

[daleo]

60. So the U.S. went from being better than the OECD average

To worse than the OECD average. And that's with spending 13.1% of GNP on health care, instead of the OECD average of 8.3%.

It is hard to argue in favor of stats like that, but someone will.

[tabasco]

26. The Nation has let the People down.

It almost seems like the Confederacy won the Civil War. We have a ruling class lording over us, receiving all the benefits the country has to offer. The rest of us have no health insurance, increasing infant mortality, and a crumbling infrastructure.

Welcome to the USA 2006.

Thanks republican voters.

You are fools.




edit typo

[bennywhale]

31. As a UK DUer i still sometimes find it hard to believe that

the US has not got healthcare free at the point of need. This is the defining value behind our NHS and i'm sure in most European countries. No matter how its paid for it must exist. Its been around for so long in this country people just take it as a fact of life.

Your ill, pregnant, need an operation, go to any doctor in any hospital (GP) anywhere in the country, no questions, no worries.

We certainly take it for granted.

Is there any concerted campaign or policy to get a National health service over there, democrats or pressure groups? or is it viewed with suspicion?

[enigma000]

32. Americans won't place another 1/8 of their economy under gov't control

Its smacks to much of socialism. In any EU or Canadian cabinet what is the most important job after Prime Minister and Finance Minister? Minister of Health. Health becomes one of, if not the central focus of a government. I don't even know the name of the Secretary of Health in the US.

[endarkenment]

45. When asked 'americans' support universal health care by 60%+

You are just repeating the lies you have been told. Politicians, all of them beholden to Big Pharma and HealthCo, pretend that UHC is unacceptable.

Please don't feed the memes.

[enigma000]

49. But if Americans really wanted universal health care

wouldn't one of the major political parties would have proposed and implemented a plan by now? Perhaps that's the failing of a political system with 2 right-of-centre parties.

[endarkenment]

51. Corruption is widespread.

Both parties are at least partly controlled by corporate greed heads. Consequently real choices and alternatives are not being offered. Even the Clinton's proposal was just another give-away to Big Pharma and HealthCo. Until there is a major malfunction of the system, on the order of the crackup of '29, real reform is not on the horizon. On the other hand, we are most likely heading towards a crackup that might make '29 look minor. Not a very comforting thought, but there are upsides to it.

[demo dutch]

58. Absolutely right on!

[bennywhale]

47. We consider it public control

rather than government control, and nurses and doctors (and in the past matrons) are viewed as noble public servants. Its vieweed here as the government is put in charge of OUR NHS and they bettter look after it.

Campaigns are fought and lost over issues of the health service.

[Judi Lynn]

37. Republicans fight the idea like madmen. They perceive people

without money as lazy parasites, and they are doing absolutely everything possible to cut the meager services which still remain after waves of slashing attacks, which assist people in need for any reason.

It seems to be a program to squeeze the very poor until they are desperate enough to steal something, then throw them in one of the new burgeoning private prisons which are making big bucks for an ever-growing prison industry.

You've probably noticed that if the criminal is wealthy, and has the ability to steal MILLIONS, his chances of really having to spend time in jail diminish rapidly.

[Autonomy]

33. We're a second-rate country with a first-rate military. (nt)

[rodeodance]

43. Here are some of the reasons they talk of:

...In the United States, researchers noted that the population is more racially and economically diverse than many other industrialized countries, making it more challenging to provide culturally appropriate health care.

About half a million U.S. babies are born prematurely each year, data show. African-American babies are twice as likely as white infants to be premature, to have a low birth weight, and to die at birth, according to Save the Children.

The researchers also said lack of national health insurance and short maternity leaves likely contribute to the poor U.S. rankings. Those factors can lead to poor health care before and during pregnancy, increasing risks for premature births and low birth weight, which are the leading causes of newborn death in industrialized countries. Infections are the main culprit in developing nations, the report said.

Other possible factors in the U.S. include teen pregnancies and obesity rates, which both disproportionately affect African-American women and also increase risk for premature births and low birth weights.

[FlaGranny]

46. What the hey is culturally appropriate health care?

With single payer health care, where everyone can get the care when they need it, why would one need "culturally appropriate" health care? Everyone's health care should be the same - preventative maintenance and then acute care when needed.

[sweetheart]

44. I wonder what this statistic is by income

Is the reality, that poor people's children are dying because
they have not the medical care of the rich?

And all the while, the political parties get all the donations,
whilst 3rd world healthcare serves the masses... how degenerate.

[lakercub]

48. Wow

who woulda thunk that European nations with their universal health care and their "socialized" medicine would outperform our for-profit insurance run health care system? Oh, right...I woulda thunk it. As long as poor people don't have insurance the number of women who won't get pregnancy checkups will remain high. A lot of these checkups would do a great job in determining risk factors for the actual time of birth. Deaths at the time of birth can oftentimes be prevented by better prenatal care throughout the pregnancy. But Aetna, Blue Cross, Humana, Metlife, etc. don't give a shit. They are raking in the bucks.

[onehandle]

50. Where's the Pro-Life Outrage! Two Million Dead Babies a Year!

Once it's out of the womb, it's on it's own.

[WildClarySage]

52. It needs to be noted

that the routine use of interventions in labor and delivery such as induction, epidurals, lithiotomy pushing position, etc, and encouraging non-emergency c-sections increase the risks to the mother and the infant. Other nations use these interventions, but only when necessary.

[Matdaddy]

53. Infant Mortality Confounders

Infant mortality rate (IMR) is the number of newborns dying under a year of age divided by the number of live births during the year. (See Infant Mortality at Wikipedia.) Stillbirths, data for which are hard to find, do not count. (Perinatal Mortality at Wikipedia.)

If Ob/Gyns in this country weren't such cowboys, pulling babies out of their mother's wombs and rushing them off to neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) where many of them die later (but many also survive), the infant mortality rate would be lower. How much lower is hard to say. Also, as NICU care improves, the infant mortality rate will decline.

I agree with the use of IMR as an index of the quality of prenatal healthcare mothers receive and the recent JAMA comparison of US and UK health substantiates the claim that healthcare in the US isn't worth what we pay for it, but some of these infant deaths are infants who would have been stillborn in other parts of the world. Our incredible-benefit-to-some-while-ignoring-many style of healthcare, though, delivered them at the earliest sign of risk and spared no expense to keep them alive as long as possible, which in some cases meant less than a year. The result is that the IMR is higher than it would be if we delivered only the low and medium risk infants and essentially left the highest risk infants to be stillborn. As long as we keep delivering and resuscitating every baby with even the worst odds of survival, our IMR numbers are going to be worse than some, no matter how good our prenatal care.

[survivor999]

55. Very good point...

I was also thinking about how these figure skew US life expectancy rates: 2 millions dead people under 1 year old must lower the overall life expectancy numbers (unless they are excluded).

[daleo]

62. Other countries take care of premature babies too

It's expensive, but we do it here in Canada too. The U.S. is not unique.

[depakid]

66. Some of the studies control for that, and still get the disparity

http://www.dhss.delaware.gov/dhss/dph/files/infantmortalityreport.pdf

[Alexodin]

56. Its going up from where it was in 2000.

From another post above:

Health Infant mortality
– OECD avg. declined from 36.3 deaths/1000 live births in
1960 to 6.5 deaths/1000 live births in 2000

– US avg. declined from 26.0 deaths/1000 live births in 1960
to 6.9 deaths/1000 live births in 2000

Infant mortality had been declining. Since the 60's.

The news is that it has going up since 2000 reversing a forty year trend.

Thats the wrong direction.

Has it only been since 2000 that we have been providing high tech health care to premature babies that would have been still born in non-industrialized countries and thereby skewing the stats? I'm asking because I don't know, but I doubt it.

[demo dutch]

57. I don't think healthcare in the US is very good at all compared to Europe

[lovuian]

59. Its Lack of prenatal healthcare due to No insurance and its

going to come out that babies released to early due to lack of Insurance mortality rates skyrocketed because of Hyperbilirubenmia...

Americans pay more for health Insurance than ANYBODY on this planet and get worse care than Hungary

We are getting majorly ripped off here
and people are dying because of it

Heres a real life example
A young girl 21 gets pregnant by her live in boyfriend and doesn't get prenatal care because she doesn't have insurance. She lost her baby when she was about 5 months along... some simple preventative things probably would have prevented this...

and in the end Americans payed for her hospital bill Its a very very sick system...

[CornField]

63. Look at the top 20

first 10

Japan
Czech Republic
Finland
Iceland
Norway
Austria
France
Germany
Isreal
Italy

next 10

Luxembourg
Portugal
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Australia
Belgium
Canada
Denmark
Estonia

The U.S. is the only country in the developed world, except for South Africa, that does not provide health care for all of its citizens. (Stephen M Ayres, M.D., Health Care in the Unites States: The Facts and the Choices.) Further, the U.S. has by far the most expensive health care system in the world, based on health expenditures per capita, and on total expedicures as a percentage of gross domestic product.

[Stockholm]

67. When GOP return to trad. wedge issues like abortion

They should be slapped in the face with this report. Connecting survival rate for newborn babies and motherhood index with the issue is another example to illustrate RW hypocrisy.