Your hearts should go out to the 16 countries with the highest infant mortality rates in the world in 2017.
The parents in these countries not only have to deal with abject poverty but also the possibility that their babies might not live past their first year. It’s easy to forget how privileged we are to live in a first-world country with only first-world problems like obesity and materialism, in one of the top 5 countries with the lowest infant mortality rates. The US infant mortality rate compared to other countries like these is incredibly low. To learn more about that check out 10 States with Highest Infant Mortality Rates. But what about the people who are lucky to eat once in a day and have never known the luxuries of modern medicine?
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These are the countries that face high risks of infant death, because of a number of reasons from diseases to lack of fresh water to simply a lack of midwives or doctors. Many of these countries reside in Africa, but some are spread throughout the middle east as well. It’s no wonder that some of them ended up on the list of unhappiest, most depressing and saddest countries in the world, we compiled a while ago. So as Christmas approaches and we’re given a bounty of blessings like overflowing plates of cookies and the latest electronic devices, let’s say a prayer for the countries on this list whose families may be minus a member or two this year.
To discover the highest infant mortality rates in certain countries for 2017, we simply pulled from five different reputable and current lists of countries with high infant mortality rates. The lists included Statista’s Countries With the Highest Infant Mortality Rate, Photius’s Infant Mortality Rate Total 2017, Geoba’s Infant Mortality Rate 2017, CIA’s (The World Factbook) Infant Mortality Rate, and World Population Review’s Infant Mortality Rate By Country. Though many of the same countries were mentioned on these lists in the same order, there were a few differences because of their different methodologies (see the sites to know what those methodologies were). So, we devised a points system that could truly show the worst of the worst. Each time a country was between first and fifth on a list, we gave it three points. Each time a country was between sixth and tenth, we gave it two points, and each time a country was between eleventh and sixteenth, we gave it one point. This makes for a points possible amount of 15, in which points count against each country. This way, we could truly determine a good ranking system. And get ready, because number one on our list of highest infant mortality rates 2017 did reach that high score of 15.
But remember, there are only 16 countries on this list, so just because a country is low on this list doesn’t mean its infant mortality rate is also low. Out of the hundreds of countries in the world, even number 16 is one of the worst countries to be if you’re an infant in 2017.
So without further ado, here it is 16 countries with the highest infant mortality rates in the world in 2017.
