Each year about 2 million babies worldwide die within their first 24 hours, and over 7 million babies born in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East do not live to their first birthday. Their deaths most commonly result from pneumonia and dehydration caused by diarrhea. In developing nations, IMRs correlate inversely with a nation's per capita income, and in countries where people make less money the IMR is significantly higher. The relationship between poverty and infant mortality is closely related because the structural conditions of poverty such as poor sanitation, lack of primary health care, malnutrition, and lack of access to clean water can be detrimental to newborns, particularly vulnerable ones.

Social factors within developing countries also have an effect on infant mortality and the ability of newborns to survive their first year. The age at which women have children can affect birth outcomes, with adolescents and women over 40 years old more at risk for giving birth to low birth weight babies. The spacing between births is another factor that can affect birth outcomes. Babies born less than 2 years apart are at greater risk of being born with a vulnerable condition, particularly when they are born to mothers who are malnourished or in a weakened physical state. Influencing interval length between births is access to, and use of, modern contraception methods to control the timing between pregnancies. High IMRs also correlate with high fertility rates, as many families attempt to balance infant deaths by having more babies to ensure the survival of some children to eventually help support the family. Unfortunately, poor parents are often unable to devote enough resources, for such things as education, to each child within a large family, making it difficult to rise out of poverty. Both reducing the IMR within developing countries through improved health conditions and shifting social norms regarding women and childbirth can have a dramatic effect on improving the quality of life of the society.

Bibliography:

1) Mullings, Leith and Alaka Wali. 2001. Stress and Resilience: The Social Context of Reproduction in Central Harlem. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.

2) Save the Children. 2006. "State of the World's Mothers 2006: Saving the Lives of Mothers and Newborns." Westport, CT: Save the Children.

3) Singh, G. K. and S. M. Yu. 1995. "Infant Mortality in the United States: Trends, Differentials, and Projections, 1950 through 2010." American Journal of Public Health 85:957-64.

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