Quoting James A. Donald [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
Other countries (notably Sweden, to which the
USA is always being compared) don't count a child as born until it
has reached a certain age (three weeks in Sweden). Guess when most
infant deaths occur?
Interesting datum. Could you give a source for this. If true, needs
wide publicity, since we web search for infant mortality and Sweden
gives a zillion hits, all saying what you would expect.
I would also like to see a source for the claim, as this is something I've
never heard before.
According to SCB, the Swedish official department of statistics, the definition
of infant mortality is all deaths which occur before the child is one year
old.
I couldn't find that definition in English on the department's web page,
though. The Swedish definition is in
http://www.scb.se/statinfo/1999/Be0101.asp
(under the term spädbarnsdödlighet)
I did find an English translation of the definition of a live birth, though.
http://www.scb.se/publkat/filer/be79sa0201%5F01.pdf
Section 3, Definitions and concepts
A live birth refers to a newborn who after the birth has breathed or showed
any other evidence of life such as active hearthbeat, pulsation in the
umbilical cord or definite movement of volontary muscles. The definition is
valid regardess of the duration of pregnancy and the maturity of the child.
A stillbirth is a newborn who has died before or during delivery and after
teh end of the 28th gestational week calculated from the first day of the
latest normal menstruation. If there is uncertainty regarding gestational age,
the length of the foetus is an important factor in the assessment. If the
length of foetus is at least 35 centimeters, it will generally be counted as a
child.
It would seem as we indeed count the child as born directly from, well, birth...
- Sten