Infant mortality in Scotland / the report of a sub-committee of the Scientific Advisory Committee.
- Great Britain. Department of Health for Scotland. Scientific Advisory Committee on Medical Administration and Investigation.
- Date:
- 1943
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Infant mortality in Scotland / the report of a sub-committee of the Scientific Advisory Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.
27/88 page 25
![reduce the neonatal death rate in prematures only from 391 to 334 per thousand premature births, and the general neonatal rate from 60-2 to 53-9. There would remain the much larger problem of eliminating prematurity, by which the general rate could be reduced to one-third, without any change in the full-time death rate. Table 19.—Cause of Death in 137 bres atae, fatants, Aberdeen Maternity Hospital, Weight in lb. 53-5 | 5-44 | 44—4 | 4-34 | 34-3 | 3 or less. | Totals. Weakness. Lived less than 24 hours. |. 5 5 7 Be. dake 29 66 iss bets a CAYS:.. ] “—~ 4 2 3 15 25 » more than 3 days but feeble from birth . 1 1 2 aa 4 3 11 Total : 7 6 13 7 22 47 102 Doubtful. Slow feeding and lethargy | 1 —_— | — 1 ] 3 6 (Immaturity of digestive system and/or infection). Infection. : Gastro-enteritis . : 1 > 5 1] — ae, 10 Pneumonia . ; ; 1 — ii — oa ] 4 Skin infection - ; = 1 4 — 1 Jf 6 Total : pe 4 10 1 2 1 20 Otay causes. Erythroblastosis_ . : 4 —_— | — 1 — = 5 Deformity va , 2 — | — 1 — — 3 Congenital syphilis ~f — | — | — — 1 — 1 | Total , 6 — — 2 1 =— 9 From time to time the conventional certification of infant deaths has been criticised as concealing causes of death (Bundesen e¢ al., 1937; Spence and Miller, 1941) and therefore providing an unsatisfactory basis for improvement. Bundesen and his co-workers made a careful investigation into the causes of infant deaths, up to fifteen days of age, in Chicago in 1936. There were 1123 such deaths (61 per cent. of the total 1,848 infant deaths), and of these 681 were deaths of premature infants. Satisfactory post-mortem examinations were made of more than a third of these. During the following four years an intensive campaign to reduce the mortality of premature infants was instituted (Hess, 1936 ; Bundesen eé al., 1936-38). Approximate comparison of the 1936 data with the corresponding data for 1940 (Report of Board of Health for the year 1940) indicates that the death-rate of premature infants under fifteen days fell by about 10 per cent. during this period, while the general infant mortality rate fell by 25 per cent. This is, in itself, no insignificant result but it is small com- pared to the reduction of mortality that might be achieved by the elimination of premature birth. . : Spence and Miller approached the problem from a different angle, attempting](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32174640_0027.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
