Infant and Toddler Health

Elizabeth R. Purdy Ph.D.

Access to medical care and proper nutrition are essential to the normal growth and development of infants and toddlers. Infant mortality is one of the most significant indicators of the level of social development within each country. Consequently, mortality rates tend to be lowest in the most industrialized nations and highest in the poorest developing countries. The countries with the highest infant mortality rates are Angola (184.44 deaths per 1,000 live births), Sierra Leone (158.27), and Afghanistan (157.43). Singapore (2.30), Sweden (2.76), and Japan (2.80) have the lowest infant mortality rates. Since the 1950s, infant morality rates have declined in the United States. However, cuts to programs that fund immunization, nutrition, and health initiatives for infants and toddlers, particularly those of the Reagan administration of the 1980s, have meant that the United States trails most other industrialized nations in infant mortality (6.37 deaths per 1,000 live births). In response to ...

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