Report Condemns Province’s High Infant Mortality
Friday, January 22, 2010 at 14:45
An academic says Saskatchewan’s infant mortality rate is higher than any other province.
Professor Dennis Raphael of York University says according to numbers supplied by Statistics Canada, the number of babies who die within a year of their birth is 8.3 per 1,000 live births.
That’s well above Canada’s overall rate of 5.4.
In a report published by Pediatrics and Child Health magazine, Raphael says consistent child poverty is the main factor behind this.
But Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer, Dr. Moira McKinnon, says the university’s data is from 2005 — and the province’s rate is now closer to six deaths per 1,000 live births.
McKinnon says the province’s infant mortality rate is the same as Alberta and Manitoba.
However, she admits that numbers in the province’s north are still quite high — approximately 10.3 babies die per 1000 births.
McKinnon says the causes for this are a lack of pre-natal care, obesity and smoking.
Raphael says Canada needs to take the lion’s share of the blame.
He notes Iceland’s infant mortality rate is just 2.3, while Sweden’s is 2.4.
Raphael says Canada needs to take its infant mortality numbers more seriously through better public policies.