What is the contribution of preterm birth to infant mortality rates?
“We found that more infants died because they were born preterm than as a result of any other cause of death,” state the authors of an article published in the October 2006 issue of Pediatrics. The Healthy People 2010 objectives have identified reduction of the U.S. infant mortality rate as a national priority; however, there has been minimal progress in recent years. The data used in the analyses were taken from the death certificates for all infants (less than 365 days of age) who died during 2002 and from the birth certificates of those infants, regardless of whether they were born in 2001 or 2002. For the 2002 linked file, 99% of infant death records were linked to the corresponding birth certificates. All analyses were weighted to account for the small fraction of unlinked records. The authors identified the top 20 leading causes of death in the linked file. The role of preterm birth for each cause was assessed by determining the proportion of infants who were born preterm for eac
