Where the High Infant Mortality Rate Trap Might Begin?

Ludmila Fialova, Charles University in Prague
Klara Hulikova Tesarkova , Charles University in Prague
Barbora Janakova Kuprova, Charles University

Recently the term High infant mortality trap was proposed in historical demographic literature. In families affected by the High infant mortality trap the overall number of births is on average higher in comparison to families with longer birth-birth intervals and lower relative risk of infant death. There could a question arise, where this “spiral” of shorter birth intervals leading to higher average number of births in a family and higher relative risk of infant death starts. The answer could be revealed by the research focused on the risk of infant death of the first-born children in a family. The aim of the paper is to analyze the first-born children in a family and evaluate 1) potential factors standing behind the risk of infant death of those children, and 2) potential relation of survival of the first-born child in a family to the overall number of children born in the family. The average higher risk of infant death in the studied populations was already proved for the last-born children in a family. The current study proved the higher risk of infant death also for the first-born children in a family. Potential reasons of this phenomenon as well as consequences are discussed briefly. Moreover, the infant death of the first-born child in a family showed to be related to the overall higher number of as well as to higher risk of infant death of children of higher birth order births in the family.

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 Presented in Session P2. Poster Session Ageing, Health and Mortality