For the world, and for both less developed countries (LDCs) and more developed countries (MDCs),<unk>  declined significantly between 1960 and 2001. According to the State of the World's Mothers report by Save the Children, the world<unk>  declined from 126 in 1960 to 57 in 2001. The global neonatal mortality<unk> , NMR, decreased from 36.6 in 1990 to 18.0 in 2017. However,<unk>  was, and remains, higher in LDCs. In 2001, the<unk>  for LDCs (91) was about 10 times as large as it was for MDCs (8). On average, for LDCs, the<unk>  is 17 times higher than that of MDCs. Also, while both LDCs and MDCs made significant reductions in<unk> , reductions among less developed countries are, on average, much less than those among the more developed countries. Among many low- and middle-income countries, there is also substantial variation in<unk>  at a subnational level. A factor of about 67 separate countries with the highest and lowest reported<unk> s. The top and bottom five countries by this measure (taken from The World Factbook's 2013 estimates) are shown below. Rank Country<unk>  (deaths/1,000 live births) 1 Afghanistan 121.63 2 Niger 109.98 3 Mali 109.08 4 Somalia 103.72 5 Central African Republic 97.17 218 Sweden 2.74 219 Singapore 2.65 220 Bermuda 2.47 221 Japan 2.21 222 Monaco 1.80 United States 1906 headline imploring parents to attend to the cleanliness of their<unk> s, and to expose them to the "clean air" outdoors. Of the 27 most developed countries, the U.S. has the highest<unk> , despite spending much more on health care per capita. Significant racial and socio-economic differences in the United States affect the<unk> , in contrast with other developed countries, which have more homogeneous populations. In particular,<unk>  varies greatly by race in the US. The average<unk>  for the whole country is therefore not a fair representation of the wide variations that exist between segments of the population. Many theories have been explored as to why these racial differences exist with socio economic factors usually coming out as a reasonable explanation. However, more studies have been conducted around this matter, and the largest advancement is around the idea of stress and how it affects pregnancy. In the 1850s, the<unk>  in the United States was estimated at 216.8 per 1,000 babies born for whites and 340.0 per 1,000 for African Americans, but<unk> s have significantly declined in the West in modern times. This declining<unk>  has been mainly due to modern improvements in basic health care, technology, and medical advances. In the last century, the<unk>  has decreased by 93%. Overall, the<unk> s have decreased drastically from 20 deaths in 1970 to 6.9 deaths in 2003 (per every 1000 live births). In 2003, the leading causes of<unk>  mortality in the United States were congenital anomalies, disorders related to immaturity, AIDS, and maternal complications. Babies born with low birth weight increased to 8.1% while cigarette smoking during pregnancy declined to 10.2%. This reflected the amount of low birth weights concluding that 12.4% of births from smokers were low birth weights compared with 7.7% of such births from non-smokers. According to the New York Times, "the main reason for the high<unk>  is preterm delivery, and there was a 10% increase in such births from 2000 to 2006." Between 2007 and 2011, however, the preterm birth<unk>  has decreased every year. In 2011 there was an 11.73%<unk>  of babies born before the 37th week of gestation, down from a high of 12.80% in 2006. Economic expenditures on labor and delivery and neonatal care are relatively high in the United States. A conventional birth averages US$9,775 with a C-section costing US$15,041. Preterm births in the US have been estimated to cost $51,600 per child, with a total yearly cost of $26.2 billion. Despite this spending, several reports state that<unk>  in the United States is significantly higher than in other developed nations. Estimates vary; the CIA's World Factbook ranks the US 55th internationally in 2014, with a<unk>  of 6.17, while the UN figures from 2005 to 2010 place the US 34th. Aforementioned differences in measurement could play a substantial role in the disparity between the US and other nations. A non-viable live birth in the US could be registered as a stillbirth in similarly developed nations like Japan, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, the Netherlands, and France – thereby reducing the<unk>  death count. Neonatal intensive care is also more likely to be applied in the US to marginally viable<unk> s, although such interventions have been found to increase both costs and disability. A study following the implementation of the Born Alive<unk>  Protection Act of 2002 found universal resuscitation of<unk> s born between 20 and 23 weeks increased the neonatal spending burden by $313.3 million while simultaneously decreasing quality-adjusted life years by 329.3. Data indicating the<unk>  disparity between<unk> s Non-Hispanic black mothers and<unk> s of white or Hispanic mothers in the United States from 2000 to 2010. The vast majority of research conducted in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century indicates that African-American<unk> s are more than twice as likely to die in their first year of life than white<unk> s. Although following a decline from 13.63 to 11.46 deaths per 1000 live births from 2005 to 2010, non-Hispanic black mothers continued to report a<unk>  2.2 times as high as that for non-Hispanic white mothers. Contemporary research findings have demonstrated that nationwide racial disparities in<unk>  mortality are linked to the experiential state of the mother and that these disparities cannot be totally accounted for by socio-economic, behavioral or genetic factors. The Hispanic paradox, an effect observed in other health indicators, appears in the<unk> , as well. Hispanic mothers see an<unk>  comparable to non-Hispanic white mothers, despite lower educational attainment and economic status. A study in North Carolina, for example, concluded that "white women who did not complete high school have a lower<unk>  than black college graduates." According to Mustillo's CARDIA (Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults) study, "self reported experiences of racial discrimination were associated with pre-term and low-birthweight deliveries, and such experiences may contribute to black-white disparities in prenatal outcomes." Likewise, dozens of population-based studies indicate that "the subjective, or perceived experience of racial discrimination is strongly associated with an increased risk of<unk>  death and with poor health prospects for future generations of African Americans." African American While earlier parts of this article have addressed the racial differences in<unk>  deaths, a closer look into the effects of racial differences within the country is necessary to view discrepancies. Non-Hispanic Black women lead all other racial groups in<unk>  with a<unk>  of 11.3, while the<unk>  among white women is 5.1. Black women in the United States experience a shorter life expectancy than white women, so while a higher<unk>  amongst black women is not necessarily out of line, it is still rather disturbing. While the popular argument leads to the idea that due to the trend of a lower socio-economic status had by black women there is in an increased likelihood of a child suffering. While this does correlate, the theory that it is the contributing factor falls apart when we look at Latino<unk>  in the United States. Latino people are almost just as likely to experience poverty as blacks in the U.S., however, the<unk>  of Latinos is much closer to white women than it is to black women. The Poverty<unk> s of blacks and Latinos are 24.1% and 21.4% respectively. If there is a direct correlation, then the<unk>  of these two groups should be rather similar, however, blacks have an<unk>  double that of Latinos. Also, as black women move out of poverty or never experienced it in the first place, their<unk>  is not much lower than their counterparts experiencing higher levels of poverty. Some believe black women are predisposed to a higher<unk> , meaning ancestrally speaking, all black women from African descent should experience an elevated<unk> . This theory is quickly disproven by looking at women of African descent who have immigrated to the United States. These women who come from a completely different social context are not prone to the higher<unk>  experienced by American-born black women. Tyan Parker Dominguez at the University of Southern California offers a theory to explain the disproportionally high<unk>  among black women in the United States. She claims African American women experience stress at much higher<unk> s than any other group in the country. Stress produces particular hormones that induce labor and contribute to other pregnancy problems. Considering early births are one of the leading causes of death of<unk> s under the age of one, induced labor is a very legitimate factor. The idea of stress spans socio-economic status as Parker Dominguez claims stress for lower-class women comes from unstable family life and chronic
Infant Mortality Rate
Perinatal mortality
Child mortality
Maternal mortality ratio
Infection rate
Mortality rate
Infant formula
Case fatality rate