“Infants are defined in demography as an exact age group, namely, age ‘zero,’ or those children in the first year of life, who have not yet reached age one.”
The infant mortality rate is generally computed as a ratio of infant deaths (deaths of children less than one year of age) registered in a calendar year to the total number of live births registered in the same year.
This rate is only an approximate measure of the true risk of death between the birth of the baby and its first birthday, for no adjustment is made for the fact that some of the infants, who died in the year considered, were born in the preceding year.
The infant mortality rate for Greater Bombay for the year 1973 may be computed as follows:
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Total number of registered deaths among infants during 1973. Total number of registered live births during 1973. Therefore, infant mortality rate for Greater Bombay for 1973.
The infant mortality rate of 86.02 per 1,000 live births during 1973 denotes that in Greater Bombay 86.02 infants per 1,000 live born babies died during the first year of their life.
The infant mortality rate is especially important in the analysis of mortality because infant deaths account for a substantial number of all deaths, especially in those countries where health conditions are poor.