The death rate is higher during the first five years than at any other five-year period; higher during the first year than any other year; highest during the first month; and its maximum is during the first week of life.
It is estimated that about fifty per cent. of all children die before they are born. Life is conferred at conception, and miscarriage is really death before birth. The registration of stillbirths, with causes, should be required by law, as it now is in some foreign countries.
Diarrhea and other digestive disorders are prevalent causes in summer; pneumonia and colds in winter.
Of the deaths from summer diarrhea, about 90 per cent. are babies artificially fed, compared with 10 per cent. naturally fed.
Mortality in Pregnancy
United States Registration Area, 1913
| Puerperal septicemia (blood poisoning, due to lack of surgical cleanliness in care) | 4,542 |
| Albuminaria and convulsions (usually preventable by regular examination of urine) | 2,397 |
| Accidents (frequently preventable by prenatal hygiene and skilful medical supervision) | 2,703 |
| Other causes | 368 |
| 10,010 |
Most of these deaths were due to preventable causes.
Even with these preventable deaths, the chances of death in childbirth were only 1 in about 200 births.
In every community where instruction has been provided in prenatal hygiene and the care of infants, a marked reduction has resulted, both in prenatal deaths, in mortality in pregnancy, in infant mortality and in the inability of mothers to nurse their babies.