[Roos_Girl]

Here’s a website that gives the ranking of countries by infant mortality rate (from 2004):

http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/news/20081015/infant-mortality-us-ranks-29th

And here’s a great website with vaccines schedules for every country (from 2009):

http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/news/20081015/infant-mortality-us-ranks-29th

Look at the difference between the US and Japan in both infant mortality rate and vaccine schedule. Japan has 2.8 deaths per 1000 and US is up at 6.9 deaths per 1000. As I said, I’m not anti-vaccine, I just don’t see that there’s any additional benefit (and possibly there’s harm) with all of the extra vaccines that the CDC recommends versus what other countries’ schedules are. Of course, not that I think vaccines are the only contributing factor to the difference in mortality, but it’s suspect. And the US ranking in the world has fallen since I was born in 1974 and now. But I would also like to see the rates of home births and breastfeeding until age 6 months and 1 year and compare those.

[DoctorBulldog]

Here’s the research paper:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170075/

Cheers

[TomB]

Before drawing any conclusions, you may want to spend time looking at how different countries compile their infant mortality rates. The US has the most stringent rules in the world, other countries have much more lax requirement. This renders any comparisons useless.