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infant mortality

infant mortality

20 4.1
The number of babies who die before their first birthday in a group of people
  • noun
  • /ˈɪnfənt mɔrˈtælɪti/
  • Specialized
translation icon : mortalidad infantil
  • Increased education is associated with a lower infant mortality rate, as expected.
  • infant mortality rate
  • high infant mortality
  • low infant mortality

You know, nobody, very few people lived all the way to, you know, old age, infant mortality was high.

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Examples

  • Increases in real GDP are associated with a reduction in infant mortality.

    Academic text (1991)
  • Our results indicate that infant mortality is greatly influenced by higher levels of real GDP.

    Academic text (1991)
  • And these also more than three times the rate of infant mortality in the high income countries.

  • Greater efficiency in home health care should lead to lower infant mortality.

    Academic text (1991)
  • So just to give you some context on South Memphis, the infant mortality rate is higher than most or many third world nations.

  • The conventional explanation for the high U.S. infant mortality rate focuses on poverty.

    Academic text (1991)
  • What is more, the book notes, the gap between black and white infant-mortality rates in America is widening.

    Academic text (1990)
  • At the turn of the century, the infant mortality rate stood at a staggering 34 percent.

  • Our empirical study also finds that more abundant medical services cause infant mortality to decline by a substantial percentage.

    Academic text (1991)
  • The infant mortality rate in developing countries is significantly higher than in developed nations.

Synonyms

infant mortality rate
vsinfant mortality
  • Specialized
7 3.7

Number of babies who die before their first birthday per 1,000 live births

is the general death rate among babies under one year not measured per 1,000
infant deathrate
vsinfant mortality
  • Specialized
4.4

The number of babies who die before their first birthday for every 1,000 live births

is the general death rate among babies under one year not bound to period

How Common

infant mortality
  • Specialized
20 4.1
neonatal mortality
  • Specialized
1 6.0
neonatal death
  • Specialized
1 5.2

Surface Forms

Morphology

infant + mortality

The meaning is directly compositional: 'infant' (young child) + 'mortality' (deaths in a population) yields deaths among infants, so a learner who knows both constituents can infer the phrase. This noun–noun combination is a common, cross-linguistic demographic term (e.g., Spanish 'mortalidad infantil'), making it transparently interpretable despite being somewhat technical.

Etymology

Infant mortality simply joins infant, meaning a baby, and mortality, meaning death. It comes from the practice of health workers counting how many babies die before their first birthday, so today it means the 'death rate among infants'.