Infant Mortality & Expected Lifespan
Infant Mortality Rate and life expectancy.
- Infant Mortality (first year of life) 30% of all babies born didn't make it through the first year of life. Because they were either born premature or died of disease (see below)
- Child Mortality (1-5 years) 20% of all babies born didn't make it to their fifth birthday.
- Life expectancy (from 1 year onwards) 20-30 years.
- Adults (age of death average) 30-40 years old and some of more higher class made it to 50 years old, because they could afford medical treatment and better sanitation.
This shows that above all Infant mortality had the biggest rate of deaths. Babies may have been born premature due to sickness in the woman and back then they did not have the resources or technology to keep the baby alive. Although the most common form of infant mortality was death in child birth or the first 24 hours after. When the child is on breast milk the baby is safe from infection but as soon as it stops the bay is prone to infection from food and water, more prone than a fully grown adult because a young child's immune system is weaker. Most people who made it though the first year 20% of them didn't make it up to five years old. This may be because of injury and accidents such as crocodile bites, snake bite. Even a graze or a mosquito bite could lead to serious and fatal infection and spread of disease. Some other causes of death from ages 5 and older were:
- Malaria & trachoma (insect spread diseases)
- Child birth
- Puerperal fever - (this is after a successful childbirth and the woman may experience puerperal fever which in those days she would die from.
- Plagues (commonly found around war times)
- malnutrition
Image above shows a mummy of an infant found by archeologists
source: http://www.traveladventures.org/continents/americas/museo-de-las-momias-guanajuato15.html
Image below shows and x-ray of a mummy showing signs of tuberculosis
source: http://www.ablogabouthistory.com/2015/04/15/tuberculosis-found-mummies/#sthash.RaossuMM.dpbs