The Guardian view on rising infant mortality: a warning from data | Editorial

Baby deaths cause untold sadness, and preventing them is a marker of civilisation. That’s why these statistics from England and Wales are devastating

Since the 19th century, infant mortality has been viewed as a marker of civilisation. In Victorian Britain between a quarter and a third of all babies died. Following a century and a half of progress in health, education and sanitation, the figure today is nearly 100 times better, 3.8 per 1,000. But infant mortality has risen for two years in a row. In 2016, 2,651 babies under one died in England and Wales, an increase of 134 in just two years. In 2016 cot deaths – which account for around a twelfth of the total – also went up. Now a new report from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health is warning that England is likely to fall further behind other wealthy nations over the next decade. It believes a new national strategy for children’s health is needed to halt the slide.

Babies die for a variety of reasons, about two-thirds of them in the first 28 days of life (stillbirths are counted separately). But both the Royal College and the Lullaby Trust, the cot death charity, point to widening inequality as a factor in increased mortality, since infant deaths are far more common in deprived populations. Risk factors associated with poverty include prematurity, smoking, maternal obesity, young maternal age, poor nutrition and lack of antenatal care.

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2yr1wDB