The U.S. infant mortality rate trails 25 other nations and is more than double that of some developed countries, according to a new report.
The report compared the U.S. infant mortality rate — defined as the death of a baby before his or her first birthday — with that of 28 other developed countries, according to the
LiveScience Website.
In 2010, there were 6.1 deaths for every 1,000 live births in the United States, which was higher than the rates of 25 other countries in the report, including Hungary, Poland, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
In the top-ranked countries, Finland and Japan, the infant mortality rate was 2.3 deaths per 1,000 live births — less than half the rate in the United States.
Despite improvements in the U.S. infant mortality rate since 2005, "This pattern of high infant mortality rates in the United States when compared with other developed countries has persisted for many years," the researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics wrote in the report.