Infant mortality in the Nordic countries, 1780–1930

Abstract

This article summarizes aspects of the decline in infant mortality in the five Nordic countries. During the nineteenth century, both the levels of infant mortality and its development differed among the Nordic countries. At an early date, Denmark, Norway and Sweden stood out as the countries with the lowest levels in Europe whereas levels of infant mortality in Iceland and Finland were comparatively high. Within the countries there were large regional differences that often crossed national borders. Artificial feeding characterized most of the areas with the highest infant mortality. Within the different countries the high infant mortality came to be seen as a problem during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The spread of information, midwives as agents of change and high literacy are factors that have been proven important in explaining the subsequent decline.

Spatial modelling of rural infant mortality and occupation in nineteenth-century Britain

“…There are parallels with the results of Thorvaldsen (2002) for Norway: like us, he found that the link between high IMR and high peripherality was only significant after the turn of the 20th century. There are also parallels with the work of Edvinsson, Garðarsdóttir, and Thorvaldsen (2008) for the Nordic countries as a whole: like us, they emphasise the diffusion of information as a factor making IMR decline more slowly in peripheral places. More work is needed to tease apart the relative contributions of peripherality, terrain, agriculture, social structure, and even (at least in the Nordic countries, where peripheral means Arctic), climate.…”

Birth weight and adult health in historical perspective: Evidence from a New Zealand cohort, 1907–1922

“…But the New Zealand infant mortality decline started in the 1880s, and there is no demographic evidence Plunket caused the decline. A similar trajectory of decline was seen in Scandinavia, which like New Zealand was wealthy with low population density (Edvinsson et al, 2008; Mein Smith, 1988). Thus, this paper also brings overdue attention to measured health outcomes among cohorts in the New Zealand infant mortality decline.…”

“…New Zealand, like Scandinavia, had the earliest sustained infant mortality decline in the industrialized world (Edvinsson et al, 2008; Woodbury, 1922). Contemporary commentators attributed New Zealand’s decline to the establishment in 1907 of the infant welfare group: the Plunket Society (Bryder, 2003).…”

Disparities in death: Inequality in cause-specific infant and child mortality in Stockholm, 1878‒1926

“…The sustained decline of infant and child mortality in Stockholm did not begin until the 1860s (Edvinsson, Garđarsdóttir, and Thorvaldsen 2008). Until then, infant mortality rates were consistently above 300 per 1,000 births, about 20% higher than the rates for Sweden as a whole at the start of its own mortality decline in the late 18th century.…”