Effective Reduction of Needless Hebdomadal Deaths in Hospitals

Use of Epidemiological Methods for Improving Obstetric and Early Pediatric Care The extremely high death rate in infants, both those born prematurely and those born at full term, in the first seven days after birth in hospitals, year after year, is a grave problem for the following reasons. 1. More infants now die in the United States during the first three days of life than during the other 362 days of the first year. Ninety-five per cent of the 415,230 births in Chicago in the most recent five years, 1950-1954, occurred in hospitals, and 97% of all hebdomadal deaths (those occurring in the first week of life) in Chicago in these five years were in infants who were born in a hospital and died without ever leaving the hospital. 2. Hebdomadal deaths during the past 15 years in Chicago have constituted two-thirds of all deaths in persons under one year