NEONATAL MORTALITY

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• We wish to make it clear at the outset that when we speak of neonatal mortality we have also in mind (a) the no less important, though less sharply defined, question of neonatal morbidity and (b) the loss of potential lives by stillbirth. In regard to neonatal morbidity, it should be stressed that though young infants possess a remarkable power of recovery from trauma and illness failure to make full recovery is especially regrettable in early life, when each child should be entitled to the prospect of a long term of good health.

• It is common knowledge that the gratifying decline in the infant mortality rate which has taken place in most countries during the last fifty years or more has not been accompanied by a correspondingly satisfactory fall of the neonatal mortality rate. Yet some countries and areas (e. g. the Netherlands, Australasia and the large cities