Infant Mortality

Infant mortality refers to deaths during the first year of life. The infant mortality rate (IMR) is the standard way of measuring infant deaths. Significant declines in infant mortality began in wealthy countries with the industrial revolution and have occurred since World War II in the developing world. These declines have significant implications for women's changing gender roles and status in the 21st century. Infant mortality is typically measured using the IMR. This is calculated by dividing the number of deaths to infants under age one by the number of live births in that population multiplied by 1,000. The IMR thus refers to the number of babies out of every 1,000 who die before reaching the age of 1.

Humans are the most fragile in the ...