Originally posted at http://www.justinlong.org/2010/07/infant-mortality/

During the early years of the church, one of the factors contributing to its survival was charity. Rodney Stark in “Cities of God: the real story of how Christianity became an urban movement and conquered Rome” gives numerous details: Christians cared for each other, and in an age when disease was dominant, the charity of Christians actually led to increased health. Thus Christians essentially “outlasted” the average Roman, and their numbers naturally grew until they had a greater share of the population–at which point they naturally had a significant impact on public policy.

Infant mortality for any given country is the number of deaths of infants under the age of 1 per 1,000 live births. Infant mortality is lowest in the developed world (e.g. North America, Europe, and Australia), and highest in Western and Central Africa as well as Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the majority of church growth is from births to Christian households (from which worldwide we gain 45 million new members per year, vs. conversion, from which we gain a net of just 3 million), and since infant mortality most affects Africa, a continent where the church is growing fastest, infant mortality can be viewed as a significant issue for the growth of the church. It is also a very strong indicator for the health and stability of any given country

Globally, the rate of infant mortality has been declining for the past 50 years. It dropped from a global average of 152 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1950 to today’s 43 deaths per 1,000 live births (UN statistics). Nevertheless several countries especially in Africa continue to have high infant mortality rates. Those with rates higher than 100 deaths per 1,000 live births (e.g. 10% of all infants die) include Angola, Sierra Lone, Afghanistan, Liberia, Niger, Somalia, Mozambique, Mali, and Zambia.

In the past the common cause of infant mortality was dehydration from diarrhea, but fortunately the spreading of information about oral rehydration solutions has helped to reduce this. The new “most common cause” is pneumonia, a typically treatable condition using antibiotics and home care. In many countries where infant mortality is gravest, there are additional factors including war, disease, abandonment, etc.

Local congregations can make a difference by partnering with larger NGOs to offer local clinics, health programs, or even basic health education. Doing this can make a significant difference in the growth of the church–simply by ensuring that babies live and grow up to become the next generation of leaders.

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Infant mortality in India has dropped 5%, due in part to work done by the Catholic Church. It is the second largest health care provider in India, running over 5,000 health care facilities, 70% of which are in the poorest and most remote areas of the country (AsiaNews.it).

The Seventh Day Adventist Church is partnering with the World Health Organization in a program to reduce maternal and infant mortality (Adventist.org).

World Vision statistics on child deaths: every 3.5 seconds a child dies. Annually, there are 9 million deaths. India has the highest burden with 1.95 million deaths of children under 5. Most are preventable with simple health interventions (World Vision India).

The Gates Foundation will give $1.5 billion to help countries combat high maternal and infant mortality over the next five years, in a bid to close the gap on the Millennium Development Goals (Guardian).

You can also read how the Gates Foundation has trained volunteers to provide basic care to pregnant women in their own communities. Since 2005, over 3,200 volunteers have been trained in Bangladesh, and have provided care to 300,000 women and 83,000 kids. Why can’t churches have these kinds of programs?