Although the infant mortality rate fell sharply from 2001 to 2005 in France, then until 2012, it has started to rise again in recent years at the rate of 0.04 deaths per 1,000 live births per year. What are the causes ?
Infant mortality rate on the rise since 2012
The numbers speak for themselves. According to the data Eurostat, France ranks 25th in Europe for infant mortality, with 3.8 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2019. Our country is thus far behind Sweden, Finland, Norway and even Italy. For ten years, the deaths of babies under 1 year old have even increased at the rate of 0.04 deaths per 1,000 live births per year.
Researchers from Inserm, the University of Paris, AP-HP and Nantes University Hospital, as well as scientists from the University of California analyzed Insee civil status data, between the years 2001 and 2019. In a study published on February 28 in the journal The Lancetthe researchers note a clear increase in the mortality rate in France since 2012. Yet this rate had fallen sharply from 2001 to 2005, and even until 2012.”We were among the best students for a long time, then the trend has changed since 2005 and it goes back from 2012 to 2019″, notes Martin Chalumeau, pediatrician and epidemiologist. Thus, of the 14,622,096 live births recorded between 2001 and 2019, the authors of the study record 53,077 deaths of babies under one year old. This corresponds to an average infant mortality rate of 3.63 per 1,000 (compared to 3.32 in 2012). 24.4% of deaths occurred on the day of birth, and 47.8% of deaths occurred during the first week after birth (4 in boys, and 3.25 in girls). “If we had the mortality rate of Sweden or Finland, there would be 1,200 fewer deaths of children under 1 year old each year”adds Martin Chalumeau who is worried about these rising figures.
Increase in infant mortality: what are the causes?
According to the authors of the study, it is essential to understand the causes of the increased death rate. For now, they recall that prematurity and congenital anomalies are among the factors linked to these early deaths. Besides, maternal age, BMI of the future mother as well as smoking during pregnancy increased during the study period. However, these risk factors are greater among the most precarious women, especially immigrants. “Immigrants may have a more difficult access to care as well as pregnancy monitoring or even a generally degraded state of health. The metropolitan department with the highest infant mortality is also the one with the highest immigrant population: Seine-Saint-Denis“, explained Magali Barbieri of the National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) to Liberation in 2021.
“It is essential to be able to explore in detail the causes of this increase by having, for example, systematic information on the precise medical and social circumstances of these deaths and by making this population, which is the most vulnerable, a real research and public health priority, which is not currently the case “, concludes Martin Chalumeau.