Free Republic

ATLANTA - U.S. infant mortality has climbed for the first time in more than four decades, in part because older women are putting off motherhood and then having multiple babies via fertility drugs, the government said Wednesday. At the same time, U.S. life expectancy reached an all-time high of 77.4 years in 2002, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Life expectancy in 2001 was 77.2 years. The nation's infant mortality rate climbed from 6.8 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2001 to 7.0 deaths per 1,000 in 2002. The last time the rate rose was in 1958. "We...