Infant care in Canadian Indian homes.

The rate of infant mortality in Canadian Indian homes was 147 per 1,000 live births, which hardly suggests that the quality of care was good. An attempt was made during 1962 and 1963 by the medical Services Branch of the Department of National Health and Welfare to evaluate the quality of care given Indian infants by their parents at home in terms of influence on the infant mortality rate and development of the child and also to measure by the same parameters the specific influence of definable adverse factors militating against the possibility of giving good care at home. In the group of 4,191 infants who were kept under observation, 1,756 or almost 42% were reported not to have been given satisfactory home care by their parents and 161 of them died within the first twelve months of life, an infant mortality rate of 92 per 1,000 live births, hardly a satisfactory rate.