Quote from: cruikshank on November 03, 2011, 11:20:07 PM

Quote from: MoonShadow on November 02, 2011, 11:01:15 PM

So I have to support my claims while others do not?

Yes, they should back up their claims as well. But I also don't care about any of the other (yours or theirs) claims, I am interested in that one claim and that one claim only.
So, again, how does Canada count its infant mortality different than the US? You yourself said you weren't sure how they did it, so how can it be apples and oranges when you don't know there are even oranges involved?

Fair enough.

My google-fu could not produce anything official from the Canadian government, but according to this article (http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/08/infant_mortality_figures_for_us_are_misleading.html) Canadian stats, as well as some European stats, don't consider a baby born with a birthweight of less than 500 grams as ever have been alive, whereas I have already mentioned, US stats would have if there were no direct evidence that that same fetus was already dead before labor began.

"
Low birth weight infants are not counted against the "live birth" statistics for many countries reporting low infant mortality rates.

According to the way statistics are calculated in Canada, Germany, and Austria, a premature baby weighing <500g is not considered a living child.

But in the U.S., such very low birth weight babies are considered live births. The mortality rate of such babies - considered "unsalvageable" outside of the U.S. and therefore never alive - is extraordinarily high; up to 869 per 1,000 in the first month of life alone. This skews U.S. infant mortality statistics.

[...]

Some of the countries reporting infant mortality rates lower than the U.S. classify babies as "stillborn" if they survive less than 24 hours whether or not such babies breathe, move, or have a beating heart at birth.

Forty percent of all infant deaths occur in the first 24 hours of life.

In the United States, all infants who show signs of life at birth (take a breath, move voluntarily, have a heartbeat) are considered alive.

If a child in Hong Kong or Japan is born alive but dies within the first 24 hours of birth, he or she is reported as a "miscarriage" and does not affect the country's reported infant mortality rates.

[...]

Too short to count?

In Switzerland and other parts of Europe, a baby born who is less than 30 centimeters long is not counted as a live birth. Therefore, unlike in the U.S., such high-risk infants cannot affect Swiss infant mortality rates.

Efforts to salvage these tiny babies reflect this classification. Since 2000, 42 of the world's 52 surviving babies weighing less than 400g (0.9 lbs.) were born in the United States."

That is a quote from another article (http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-doctor-is-in-infant-mortality-comparisons-a-statistical-miscarriage/?singlepage=true) which also contains these two gems...

"Norway boasts one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world. But when the main determinant of mortality weight at birth is factored in, Norway has no better survival rates than the United States.

Pregnancies in very young first-time mothers carry a high risk of delivering low birth weight infants. In 2002, the average age of first-time mothers in Canada was 27.7 years. During the same year, the same statistic for U.S. mothers was 25.1 an all-time high."

Unfortunately the author of the second article doesn't provide references that I can find, so I can't follow her any farther down the rabbit hole. She also happens to be this woman (http://www.lindahalderman.com/) so you can discount her opinon on the matter considering she is one of those evil conservative doctors who hate life and thus are drawn to public service instead.

Does this adaquately asnwer your question?

EDIT: And there is also this comment from another doctor on the first article...

"As a physician it is common knowledge that the U.S. healthcare system is unrivaled in the care delivered to high risk pregnancies. This country also has (by far) the most advanced neonatal ICU's in the world as well as the best neonatologists. It is annoying to read WHO (World Health Organization) statistics which continue to suggest realtively high infant mortality rates in the US, when it is just the opposite."