[neverdem]

Behind International Rankings of Infant Mortality: How the United States Compares with Europe

Scroll down to find the text. I haven't read it yet.

[VRWCmember]

Also, those premature births in foreign countries aren’t even counted as births for their infant mortality calculations. They simply count them as miscarriages. Sort of like a sacrifice fly or sacrifice bunt not counting as an at-bat when you calculate your batting average.

[RWGinger]

This doesn’t make sense since American Indians have free medical care Plus any women who gets pregnant but is broke gets free care through Medicaid and / or CHIPS.

somehow this will be blames on the Gov’t who will then go create a new gov’t dept.

When is it the responsibility of the woman?

[Haiku Guy]

The US calls a lot of things “Infant Death” than most other countries call miscarriage. The relatively high rates of infant mortality in the United States is entirely due to this difference in terminology. All of the hand-wringing over this statistic is useless, because it is really a difference in terminology, and nothing more.

But it fits the template, so nobody looks any further.

[Skooz]

Bump for later reference

[the long march]

LIES. The poorest women have access to health care -— it is friggin called Medicaid. These women are not interested in the health of their babies they are interested in drugs and sex and alcohol and a free ride

[hinckley buzzard]

When a severely handicapped or malformed baby is born in the US, we pull out all the stops to try to save it, but if the baby dies it is reported as an infant death. In Europe, they routinely just let it die, and if they don't try to save it they do not report it as an infant death. Major differences when conduct is governed by the ethic of life as opposed to the European culture of death.

As Condi Rice once said in a vastly underreported and under-appreciated speech, "We have different values than Europe has."

[freelancer]

Dr. Fleischman said the smallest, earliest and most fragile babies were often born to poor and minority women who lacked health care and social support

I had a premie (29 weeks gestation, 1 lb 11 oz, small for gestational age) and I am neither poor nor am I minority. I guess I just don't fit their stereotype.

[GeronL]

High rates of premature birth are the main reason the United States has higher infant mortality than do many other rich countries

Meaningless blather. Every country calculates it differently, many do not count premature babies as babies, some count babies as alive if they live a certain number of hours after birth, somtimes its days, I think Cuba starts at 2 or 3 days.

This "infant mortality rate" is useless and a sham. Only the US actually attempts to count this stuff accurately.

[firebrand]

When it comes to prematurity, infertility treatments — drugs that stimulate ovulation and procedures that implant more than one embryo in the uterus — also play a role by raising the odds of twins or higher multiples, which have an increased risk of being born too soon.

The insistence on having everything, in other words. If you're missing just one piece of the jigsaw puzzle, you haven't really lived. You've been cheated. That is truly the American Dream. My local Japanese restaurant has it right: the American Dream sushi roll is a roll with salmon, avocado--and tempura. Witty.