| OCR Text |
Show Infant Death Rate by Accident High New York. Two thousand infants less than a year old are killed each year in accidents, a survey reported report-ed in the statistical bulletin of the Metropolitan Life Insurance company compa-ny reveals. Mechanical suffocation suffocation suffo-cation in too-heavy bedclothes or in a too-soft pillow is responsible for the deaths of nearly two-fifths of the babies who are killed accidentally, accident-ally, the report declares. The 2,000 deaths work out to 97 accidental deaths for every 100,000 babies born alive in the United States. Canada reports also a high rate although their rate is comparatively compara-tively lower, 76 per 100,000. High accidental death rates among negro babies act to boost the total for the United States as a whole. The high accidental death rate for infants has been overlooked In the past because of the higher mortality mortal-ity from disease, the report points out. "Accidents to infants should be a matter of national concern," it is argued, "for every year more than 2,000 babies are killed in accidents of one kind or another more than die in an average year from measles, mea-sles, scarlet fever and diphtheria combined." Other accidents involving infants include suffocation from swallowing foreign objects such as safety pins; burns and scalds; falls from cribs; and poisonous substances and fire. No significant improvement in this rate has been recorded during the past 15 years, the survey concludes. |
