Infant mortality in Britain second worst in EU urope
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Your support makes all the difference.Britain has the second-highest death rate among babies in the European Union, government figures released yesterday show.
The rate of 5.8 child deaths in every 1,000 live births is only slightly better than in Greece, which has the Union's worst record at 5.9 per 1,000, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. Britain's performance is far worse than that of Sweden, which has the lowest infant mortality of the 15 EU states at 2.9 deaths per 1,000 births.
Infant mortality inBritain has fallen by three-quarters since 1960, when the rate was 22.5 per 1,000 live births. The ONS report showed southern European countries such as Spain, Italy and Portugal had experienced much greater reductions in infant death rates over the past 40 years. The most improved rate was in Portugal, which saw infant mortality fall from 77.5 in 1960 to 5.4 per 1,000 live births in 1999.
A second study released by the ONS showed that one-fifth of all adopted people have taken the decision to obtain records that name their natural parents.
More than 400,000 children in Britain have been adopted by new families since the practice became legal in 1926. But it was only in 1975 that adoptees over the age of 18 were given access to their original birth records.
Since then more than 75,000 have obtained a copy of the records, which identify one or more parent and the name they were given at birth.
The analysis, compiled by Rupert Rushbrooke, showed that 47,000 women and 28,000 men have sought the identities of their natural parents, which equates to nearly 20 per cent of the total.
But with the greater openness now surrounding adoption, it is estimated that one third of adoptees will apply for their records at some point.
Mr Rushbrooke said: "By the 1990s, encouraged by more publicity of all kinds, more and more adoptees became ready for this lengthy emotional journey, and therefore the numbers rose to a much higher, and sustainable level."
The study underlines how, until 1975, the philosophy behind adoption was to give a child a "new start" in life, free of the taint of illegitimacy and so there was no access to birth records. The law was then changed because of the psychological problems experienced by adoptees who were denied any knowledge of their genetic identity.
Mr Rushbrooke said: "The phenomenon of adoptees applying for their birth records is clearly mainstream adoption behaviour and not at all the peripheral activity that had been expected in 1975."
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