NEO-MALTHUSIANISM AND RACE HYGIENE IN “PROBLEMS IN EUGENICS.” Vol. 2. London, 1913. Dr. Alfred Ploetz, President of the Int. Soc. for Race Hygiene.
Arthur Geissler concluded from a study of about 26,000 births of unselected marriages among miners that the mortality of children was least in the four first-born, and then increased to a very high rate. Following are Geissler’s figures, (marriages with only one or two children are omitted).
| Deaths during first year | |
|---|---|
| 1st born children | 23% |
| 2nd born children | 20% |
| 3rd born children | 21% |
| 4th born children | 23% |
| 5th born children | 26% |
| 6th born children | 29% |
| 7th born children | 31% |
| 8th born children | 33% |
| 9th born children | 36% |
| 10th born children | 41% |
| 11th born children | 51% |
| 12th born children | 60% |
INFANT MORTALITY. Results of a Field Study in Johnstown, Pa., based on Births in one calendar year. By Emma Duke, Infant Mortality Series, No. 3. Bureau Publication No. 9. U. S. Department of Labor, Children’s Bureau.
The pamphlet embodies the result of a field study in Johnstown, Pa., based on one calendar year. The inspection was made in 1913, of the 1911 babies, so that even the last born baby included had reached its first birthday—or rather had had a chance to reach its first birthday; many of them were dead long before that day. Every mother of a 1911 baby was visited. She was questioned about the health of that child and all her other children. The report takes up the familiar factors—neighborhood environment, sanitary conditions, sewage, housing, nativity, attendance at birth, feeding, age of mother, and like matters. Full information is given on these points. Then the report considers infant mortality from a novel viewpoint—the relation of the death rate to the size of the family. The Johnstown statistics include families varying in number from one child to ten and over, and varying in health from none living to all living. The result of the study of infant mortality in relation to the size of the family is thus stated: “The statistics, based on the results of all her reportable pregnancies, show a generally higher infant mortality rate where the mother has had many pregnancies, but there is not always an increase from one pregnancy to the next.” The following table shows this tendency. It is based on the reproductive histories of 1,491 married mothers who had 5,617 births. Miscarriages are not included.
| Infant Mortality Rate for all Children borne by Married Mothers: Table 36 | |
|---|---|
| Number of Pregnancies. | Infant Mortality Rate. |
| 1 and 2 | 108.5 per 1,000 |
| 3 and 4 | 126.0 per 1,000 |
| 5 and 6 | 152.8 per 1,000 |
| 7 and 8 | 176.4 per 1,000 |
| 9 or more | 191.9 per 1,000 |
| Average | 149.9 per 1,000 |
In contemplating these figures we think immediately of wage-earning mothers away from home, ignorant feeding, and lack of care. These are powerful factors in raising the death rate.
Of all the 1911 babies who died before they were a year old, 37% died in the first month of life. So much pain and misery and then no baby after all. All the skill in the world could not have saved those babies who lived only long enough to die.
The infant mortality rate for the babies whose fathers earn under $521 is almost twice as great as for those born into families in the most prosperous group. These figures strengthen the conclusion reached in the study of the babies born in 1911, namely that the economic factor is of far-reaching importance in determining the baby’s chance of life.
One of the tables showing the influence of the economic factor, is calculated on the basis of 1,434 live-born babies with fathers. 187 of these babies succumbed during the first year, giving a general mortality rate of 130.7 per 1,000. In these families a very few of the mothers worked outside the homes.