The Real Story of America's Infant Mortality Rate

Alert: I am going to get political in this post! 

I am a huge fan of natural childbirth.  I believe in midwives.  Proponents of natural childbirth often argue that America should follow the European model of childbirth (midwives and homebirth are much more common in Europe), because we have one of the worst infant mortality rates among industrialized nations.  But here's the real story:

[W]hat those who create these damning lists never mention is that America considers a premature delivery a ‘baby’ and tries to save it – and is one of the few countries that keep track of early fetal mortality, defined as the survival rate of infants who are born as early as the 20th week of gestation. Most countries don’t even keep track of newborns who die in the first 24 hours, with many European countries labeling them “fetal deaths” rather than live births. America goes to great lengths to save those newborns – other countries are unwilling to spend the resources to do that. Government funded healthcare makes these decisions for parents by assigning a monetary value to life – and often find they cannot afford to save premature babies. So they write them off. We count them.

I am so thankful I live in America, where life is sacred.  We are a great nation!


You can read the rest of this article here.