INFANT MORTALITY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2280, 24 May 1921, Page 1

INFANT MORTALITY.

NEW ZEALAND’S FINE RECORD,

WIIAT IS THE POSSIBLE

MINIMUM?

It. i.s a source of gratification to New Zealanders that the infant mortality rate, the proportion of deaths among children under one year of age, is lowest of any country from which statistician re available. In the Journal of Health and Hospitals, Dr. M. 11. Watt, Director of the Division of Public Hygiene, points out that a marked decline in infant mortality began in 1900, the year in which the Public Health Department was created. The rate of infantile mortality in New Zealand has declined from 75.2 per 1000 in 1900 to 45.26 per 1000 in 1919. Of these deaths, 28.4 occur within a month of birth, the chief cause being developmental diseases, •attributable to conditions arising before birth. The deaths of infants from infectious diseases have been reduced to 0.90 per 1000, New Zealand i* exceedingly fortunate as compared with other countries, says I lie article. A healthy slock, an equable and genial climate, a plentiful food supply, an absence in great degree of overcrowded centres of population and of industrial employment of women, and, perhaps above all, a lack of the depressing poverty seen in older lands, are all factors which favour a low infant death-rate. The most marked success, perhaps, has been the decrease of deaths from intestinal diseases, which in 1000 were responsible for some lift ecu deaths in every thousand infants born, as against only some two deullm in 1919, In the saving of life which has been effected, infants under one month have not participated to any appreciable extent. The reason for this is that the majority of deaths at tillage are due to developmental diseases, which so far have been extraordinarily resistant to administrative action. No further marked progress in infant welfare in New Zealand can bo expected unless an endeavour be made to improve the chances of survival of infants under one month. Of the total ol 1.108 infants who in 4919 died under the age of twelve months, only 413, or some 37 per coni, of the total, completed their first month. We arc still far from knowing what constitutes the irreducible minimum of infant mortality. The New Zealand ligures are important, however, as showing that the deaths from developmental conditions in the lirst. month, which have been described by Dr. Brend as ‘the real natural death-rate,” may lie reduced to as low a figure as 20 per thousand births.”