The AP, doing what it does best:
The United States ranks near the bottom for infant survival rates among modernized nations. A Save the Children report last year placed the United States ahead of only Latvia, and tied with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia.
The United States tries to save lots of preemies and other babies that wouldn’t be considered worth the effort elsewhere, which is why these stats are skewed. And Save the Children knows it, and so does the AP, but neither one cares to provide that context, because they are contemptuous of their audience, and it advances agendas that they support not to report the truth.
For your own good, you morons.
And if you include abortions…
I had a huge argument with a buddy of mine who is about a left as they come about this. Do you have a link to these stats? This guy is a smart guy, but absolutely refuses to believe that all countries do not report live births the same way as the US.
Save The Children needs to step up its U.S. operations. They squander money in Africa while the genocide of American children continues unabated. It’s sickening.
People are stupid things.
buzz, Wikipedia’s entry has some examples:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_century/Infant_mortality
See footnote 6.
I’d just like to say that happyfeet is a very astute poster here at PW.
Weird, but astute.
With a……veering sense of humor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality
The infant mortality rate correlates very strongly with and is among the best predictors of state failure.[1] IMR is also a useful indicator of a country’s level of health or development, and is a component of the physical quality of life index. But the method of calculating IMR often varies widely between countries based on the way they define a live birth. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a live birth as any born human being who demonstrates independent signs of life, including breathing, voluntary muscle movement, or heartbeat. Many countries, however, including certain European states and Japan, only count as live births cases where an infant breathes at birth, which makes their reported IMR numbers somewhat lower and raises their rates of perinatal mortality.
The exclusion of any high-risk infants from the denominator or numerator in reported IMRs can be problematic for comparisons. The United States counts an infant exhibiting any sign of life as alive, no matter the month of gestation or the size, but some other countries differ in these practices. For example, in Germany and Austria, fetal weight must reach one pound to be counted as a live birth, while in some other countries, including Switzerland, the baby must be at least 12 inches long. Both Belgium and France report babies as born lifeless if they are less than 26 weeks’ gestation.[2]
Buzz,
More ammo.
Another unmentioned (mostly) factor is apathy among the poor – there are about 6 million kids and adults who could be covered under either SCHIP or Medicaid who (or whose parents) choose not to go through the “hassle”. If a mother sticks with drugs and alcohol in lieu of prenatal care then the babies chances drop to third world levels.
Can I abort a 29 year old male lefty? Is that cool? Will that count against our infant mortality rate? I need to know in order to move on.
Blame Canada
Rick makes some very good points that foster parents like myself see all of the time.
It says a lot that you can’t find that article anywhere carrying an actual byline. No one wanted to put their name on that, it’s clear enough.
Adding insult to injury is that this month is National Preemie Month.
Bad timing, Save the Children.
It’s not so much that these “news” organizations are contemptuous of their readers as it is that they really hate children. The whole idea that we try to save even our really young ones really pisses them off.
My sister is a neo-natal nurse practitioner. She says there are other factors skewing the stats (in addition to what Dan Collins cited). Some countries do not count as a live birth any child who does not reach his first birthday. Some countries abort more of these babies (ie, Cuba). Also, many women with complicated pregnancies come to the US specifically because the expertise is here to treat those babies. (Remember the Canadian woman with quints — sextuplets? — a couple of months ago?) She has patients from all over the world. (Unfortunately, when these babies are born disabled and live, they become US citizens and get social security disability, even if they return with their mothers to their home countries.)
#16 class factotum
(Unfortunately, when these babies are born disabled and live, they become US citizens and get social security disability, even if they return with their mothers to their home countries.)
Those don’t bother me nearly so much as the expectant mothers from TJ who come north across the border to shop at the Otay Mesa Outlet mall and shockingly find themselves in labor and must rush to a San Diego County emergency room…
When I lived in San Diego a few years ago, that happened several times a day. Amazing.
Awwww, c’mon everybody.
Quit pretending that there is ANY place in the world that is worse than the United States….
I mean, fer Chrissakes, even Sean Penn knows that this country sucks a fat one.
These stats have been used for years to spell out he sad state of maternal care in the US (from pregnancy to labor and delivery.) Ask some, and they will extoll the virtues of giving birth in a hut. BIRTH STATS don’t lie! The agenda is, of course, discount OBs and the medical community, and herald the midwife. I’m all for midwifes – I think they’re great. But, you shouldn’t have to lie to make your argument.
If we just had some of that good ol single-payer, socialized Euro Health Care it would, suddenly, all be better. De Hildebeast will Save us.
And the headline is a big lie too, even if the stats were legit. “Among worst in world”. No. We’re doing quite a bit better than Angola, even with the skewed numbers. How about “among worst in DEVELOPED world”?
Being the father of a preemie, I can attest that there is nowhere else on this planet that I would have wanted her to have been born than the good ole US of A. As the expectant father of a likely preemie, there is nobody that I would trust the care of the mother and child to than our medical professionals.
FWIW – The neo-natal ICU had a 15 ounce child delivered, and survived. Does that happen in China? Lesotho? Paraguay? Cuba? Greenland? Canada? Didn’t think so.
Lying fucking media.
Dead baby skulls give me that extra crunch I need to reverse out of my driveway during the winter.
Please don’t take that dead baby crunch away from me.
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