The Geographical Analysis of the Causes of Infant Mortality in the City of Amarah

Abstract

Infant deaths are an important indicator of the health and living standards in a community. Infants are the most affected by poor healthcare services, even if the issues are minor. Mortality rates are highest at birth and decrease as the age of 10, but they can rise again at older ages due to the quality of healthcare and other factors like biological, social, and economic conditions. This study aims to examine infant death rates in Amarah and identify the main factors influencing them. The results show that infant deaths have started to decline slowly, the mortality rate was 3.4% (20 deaths per 1,000 live births), but I raised to 63.1%   with (122 deaths per 1,000 live births) in the year 2022 due to the unstable economical, health and social  conditions which the study area was exposed to. The study also shows that there is a gender disparity in infant mortality, with male infants accounting for 73.0% (79 deaths per 1,000 live births), while the female infants account for 50.5% (43 deaths per 1,000 live births) for the year 2022. This is due to Social and economic factors like family income, housing, and the level of care provided to pregnant mothers. In addition, there are other reasons that played a big role in infant deaths. Those are the age of the mother when giving birth (48.8%), income level (47.2%), mother age when married (45,6%), spacing between births (29,6%) and health reasons which was the highest at (59,2%). These health issues include low weight at birth, Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), poor nutrition, birth defects and infectious diseases, these factors were the primary reasons to the high infant mortality rates.