One metric of a country's success is a low rate of preventable infant fatalities. A few countries that have lower infant mortality rates than the United States are Cuba, Slovakia, Portugal and Singapore.

One common but entirely preventable cause of infant fatalities is birth injuries. Birth injuries typically occur because of mistakes made by the hospital staff attending to the delivery. There are also many other causes of infant fatalities that can happen before pregnancy, during pregnancy and during the child's first year of life.

According to research done by the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 30 countries have a lower infant mortality rate than the United States. The only countries in the 37-country study with higher infant mortality rates than the United States were Chile, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Russia, Bulgaria and Romania.

The most recent statistics on the issue from the 2007 National Vital Statistics Report by the CDC show that the infant mortality varies greatly depending on location within the country.

The highest infant mortality rates were found in Mississippi and Alabama, where there were almost 10 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. In comparison, there were only about five deaths per 1,000 live births in Washington and Massachusetts.

The differences in infant mortality rates by race are equally alarming. The infant mortality rate is 5.63 for Caucasians, but 13.31 for African Americans. Among Hispanics, the infant mortality rate is 4.57 for South and Central Americans, 5.18 for Cubans, 5.42 for Mexicans and 7.71 for Puerto Ricans.

Despite federal and state initiatives to reduce the number of infant deaths, America retains an unnecessarily high infant mortality rate. Yes, the rates have been slowly and steadily on the decline since 2000, but they still have a long way to go.

Source: CNN, "Why is infant mortality still a U.S. problem?" Deborah Klein Walker, Nov. 2, 2011.