Life expectancy in the US

If a baby in the US breaths and then dies after it has taken a breath, it enters into the mortality rate data. Other countries have stricter measures before a death is counted in those numbers. More interesting is the report that the US's high premature birth rate is do to the age of the mother and medical advances that help women get pregnant.

The rate of pre-term births is highest in Africa, where 11.9% of babies are born before 37 weeks of gestation. Poor nutrition, a lack of access to maternal care and a higher burden of infectious diseases are among contributors to the problem there, Dr. Howson says.

But Africa is followed closely by the U.S. and Canada, where the premature birth rate is 10.6%. In the U.S. alone, the rate has increased 36% in the past 25 years, the report says. Growing numbers of women who have babies after age 35 as well as the impact of assisted reproduction techniques that lead to more multiple births partly explain the trend in North America, the report says. . . .