The causes of infant mortality vary greatly by age. Children after a year of life are more likely to suffer from external causes, and some causes of infant death, for example, death in the perinatal period, cannot apply to children over 1 year of age. It is for this reason that infant mortality (children under one year of age) stands out from the infant mortality category.
Infant mortality
In Russia, among children over one year old, a significant proportion of mortality is death from external causes. According to Rosstat, a third of children die as a result of road traffic accidents, murders and accidents. According to statistics, the main causes of infant mortality in this category are road traffic accidents and suicides. The most common diseases causing infant mortality are respiratory diseases, infectious diseases and neoplasms.
Unfortunately, Rosstat data does not provide specific information on the deaths of children over a year old. More detailed information is given on infant mortality with an indication of the cause of death. However, these indicators are not always specified. For example, the external causes of death “homicide” and “accident” are not categorized into different categories.
In the collections "Children of Russia 2009" and "Youth of Russia 2010" data are published only for the last 3 years, which does not allow us to track the changes in full. In addition, in the collection "Children of Russia" mortality rates from external causes are given for children aged 0 to 14 years, combined into one group. Such data give a vague picture of this problem, since the causes of death among infants and children over a year old differ significantly. There are practically no data on adolescent mortality. The collection "Youth of Russia" presents mortality rates for some external causes for children 15-17 years old.
More complete information is provided in the European database, which uses a detailed breakdown of causes of death. Russia also submits its data to the European database, albeit in an abbreviated version. The indicators from the detailed European database are used by the World Health Organization. According to WHO estimates, the level of infant mortality from external factors in Russia is the highest in the world, along with Moldova and Kazakhstan.
Infant mortality
The infant mortality rate is an important indicator of the socio-economic well-being of the state. A high mortality rate among newborns indicates a low level of medicine, including the poor health of women in labor. The main causes of death in the first year of life are asphyxiation and oxygen starvation, congenital malformations and respiratory diseases.
In Russia, more than a third of maternity hospitals and children's medical institutions require major repairs and modern medical equipment. Often the cause of death in newborns is unqualified medical care and inattention by the medical staff of maternity hospitals as a result of low salaries of medical workers.
