What Are the 10 Leading Causes of Infant Morbidity?
The 10 leading causes for infant mortality are congenital malformations, disorders related to premature birth, sudden infant death syndrome, infant affected by maternal complications, infant affected by cord or placenta, unintentional injuries, respiratory distress, bacterial sepsis, neonatal hemorrhage and necrotizing enterocolitis. Out of all of the leading causes of death, malformations, prematurity and SIDS accounted for 43 percent of the deaths in the United States in 2005.
When the data was taken in 2005 for the leading causes of death in infants, the most common death reason was congenital malformations, which included spina bifida and cleft palettes. The lowest leading cause of death in infants was necrotizing enterocolitis, but it still played a major factor in the reason that infants died. All of the other causes of death in infants accumulated made up around 30 percent of the deaths in the United States. These causes included intentional death to infants, violent crimes committed on infants and cases where infants were affected by infections or diseases that were not related to birth. With all of the reasons for death considered, there were around 700 deaths of infants that occurred in the U.S. in 2005 with the infant being less than 1 year old.
