A report published earlier this week shows that while mortality rates for infants in the first month of life have declined globally over the past 20 years, progress has slowed, particularly in countries suffering from the highest rates. Significantly, the study documents the fact that the United States, the world’s wealthiest industrial nation, has fallen to 41st place worldwide in neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births, placing it next to last among developed countries.
Newborns in the US are more than three times as likely to die as those in Japan. The US is tied near the bottom of industrial nations with Serbia and Croatia. Only Latvia, with six deaths per live births, ranks lower.
The United States, which spends the greatest percentage of its GDP on health care of any country in world, has a neonatal mortality rate of 4.3 per 1,000 live births placing it even with Qatar (4.3) and below Poland (4.0), Cuba (2.9), South Korea (2.2.) and Cyprus (1.6).
