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Premature birth and the changing composition of newborn infectious disease mortality: reconsidering “exogenous” mortality.

Linked death and birth records from San Antonio, Texas, indicate that infectious infant mortality is more and more a function of premature birth and low birth weight. From 1935 to 1944, 4 percent of infectious infant deaths had related causes entailing prematurity and associated conditions. By 198...

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Published in:Demography Vol. 34; pp. 399 - 410
Main Author: Sowards, Kathryn A.
Format: Article
Published: Springer Science & Business Media B.V. August 1997
Subjects:
Birth weight, Low
Communicable diseases
Mortality
Infant mortality
History
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Summary:Linked death and birth records from San Antonio, Texas, indicate that infectious infant mortality is more and more a function of premature birth and low birth weight. From 1935 to 1944, 4 percent of infectious infant deaths had related causes entailing prematurity and associated conditions. By 1980, 25 percent of infectious infant deaths involved prematurity, and over 40 percent of those infants weighed less than 2,500 grams. The shift in birth-weight composition is almost completely attributable to a rise in very low-weight births. Under conditions of advanced perinatal technology, infectious infant mortality should no longer be regarded as entirely exogenous. These results further undermine the contemporary pertinence of the exogenous-endogenous distinction.