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CDC officials said the exact reasons for the increase are not yet clear. But previous CDC research suggests the rise in infant mortality may reflect the long trend among American women toward delaying motherhood. Women who put off motherhood until their 30s or 40s are more likely to have babies with birth defects or other potentially deadly complications. Also, older women are more likely to use fertility drugs to get pregnant, and such drugs often lead to twins, triplets and other multiple births. And multiple births carry a higher risk of premature labor and low birth weight - conditions that can endanger babies' lives.

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I was nearly 40 when The Wee Tyrant was born. Many of my friends and colleagues have waited until their late 30s or early 40s to have families. No fertility problems, no complications. The only thing I've noticed is the increasing medicalization of birth. Could this be the problem? Doctors handing out fertility pills like candy when an older couple can't get pregnant after 3 months of trying and they've got to have that precious bundle nownownow?

And what about poverty? Doesn't maternal poverty have anything to do with low birth weights and infant mortality? The US has a higher infant mortality rate than some non-industrialized or "Second World" nations.

How does an organization like the CDC come up with infant mortality stats without collecting information on how they died? Why do they say they don't know why there's been an increase?

However, I beleive it is only one factor, and by no means the most significant. Michelle is right if they were trying to suggest that age is the only factor. But that is not to say that it is not an influence at all- if in those countries "where women get married at 14 and have babies before they're even out of their teens" the women also waited until they were 40-something but the other adverse conditions still existed, the infant mortality rate would be even higher.

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Could this be the problem? Doctors handing out fertility pills like candy when an older couple can't get pregnant after 3 months of trying and they've got to have that precious bundle nownownow?

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I think medicalization of birth has contributed to a lot of problems for both women and babies. Many c-sections, in my opinion (based on reading reams of studies and publications from both the alternative/midwifery side and the doctor/standard medicine side) are iatrogenic (doctor-caused) in nature. Often they look to mess with a labour before it even begins...

On the other hand, I've also seen some of my friends who are my age or a few years older go through miscarriages and one had a still-birth. Were they caused strictly by the age of the mother? Who can tell? I had both of mine in my 30s, and had the greatest, low-risk pregnancies and births possible. I even had my second one at home.

Think of how many people in the U-S are obese, that causes many health problems, and I'm sure that a large percentage of expectant mothers are now falling into that category. Overall poor health can make for an unhealthy infant AND a difficult birth. Low breastfeeding rates also play a part in infant mortality.

It should be possible to study mortality among late-born children from different eras and compare them to children born to mothers of of similar ages born today, but I don't know of any research on the topic, and I wonder if the study above has examined this. Somehow I doubt it.

[ 15 February 2004: Message edited by: Mike Keenan ]

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Low breastfeeding rates also play a part in infant mortality.

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I realize that it is much healthier to breastfeed, but does it actually lower infant mortality rates? In the 40's and 50's when bottle feeding was so popular were IMR higher due to bottle feeding.

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I don't know any hard stats on this for here, and don't know if it's the case at all. In 3rd world countries, however, where there isn't a safe water supply, children fed formula often pick up diseases that would make an adult or older child uncomfortable, but are deadly for babies -- they dehydrate so much more quickly.

I do know, however, that it is considered better for preemies and babies with health problems to have mother's milk than formula.

One suspects the infant mortality difficulties in the US revolve around larger risk factors, especially given that even today not all US women are beginning to give birth in their forties.

Poverty. racism. sexism. Lack of prenatal care. These are more important factors. In some areas of the U.S., i.e. parts of the deep South, infant and child mortality is much higher than the average and higher than that of many other nations.

[ 18 February 2004: Message edited by: Madame X ]