Children Mortality

Children Mortality

Introduction

The main purpose of this paper is to identify two indicators and compare them in terms of children's health. The paper discusses the infant mortality and the attributes associated with it. The paper also discusses the difference between the indicator and the proportion of infant death attributable to a certain disease along with the ways to calculate the indicators. The paper also identifies the ways through which infant mortality is linked with the gross domestic product of the country.

What is Infant Mortality?

Infant mortality is the number of children who die during the first year of life. It expresses the number of deaths of children related to the number of births in a given territory. This figure is reported in 1000 live births. It reached 54.70 per thousand on average in the world in 2006, with significant differences from one country to another. For example, in Tanzania the figure is 69.28 per thousand as against 4 per thousand in France. According to WHO, it is during the first week that the newborn is most likely to die. While 21% of all child deaths occur at birth, 21% also occur during the first week, then only 7% the following week. The rest of the deaths spread over the first four years (Falkingham, 2009).

Generally, infant mortality is expressed as a rate or index, and is one that gives the ratio between the number of children under one year who died in the course of a year and the number of live births in the same year. It is expressed in percent or parts per thousand, and is grouped by age or months of birth, sex, city or country, or social group. Infant mortality is often distinguished by several categories: early neonatal, spanning from birth through the first week of life, neonatal, until the first month of life, and postneonatal, from birth to one year old. Although the infant mortality rate is measured on children younger than 1 year, also sometimes measured in children under 5 or 9 years, this category covers children over one year, is called child.

What is infant mortality attributable to a certain disease?

Infant mortality is considered to be attributable to a certain disease i.e. premature birth. Preterm birth refers to babies born too early or before 37 weeks of gestation (pregnancy). The average length of a normal pregnancy is 40 weeks. However, most women give birth within two weeks before or after the estimated date of delivery (between 38 and 42 weeks) (Leone, 2010). In 2011, 12% of babies born in North Carolina were born prematurely (i.e. 14.483 2.104 babies were born prematurely and Latinos). Compared with 2010, this represents a reduction of 5% (12.6% of babies were born prematurely in 2010). The low birth weight refers to babies born weighing less than five pounds and a half. In 2011 the percentage of babies born underweight remained the same as in 2010 (i.e., 9.1% of all babies born in North Carolina were born underweight in 2010 and ...