Известия Уральского федерального университета. Серия 2: Гуманитарные науки (Jun 2020)
Seasonality of Infant Mortality in Barnaul in the Second Half of the 19th — Early 20th Centuries (with Reference to Parish Books)
Abstract
This article analyses the seasonal peculiarities of infant mortality and identifies periods of children’s increased vulnerability to adverse factors during the year. The article assesses infant mortality rate and the impact of various causes in the formation of the situation with infant mortality. Referring to the database of Barnaul parish register books, the author analyses deaths of Orthodox believers between 1869 and 1911. During the period in question, Russia was characterised by a high level of infant mortality, and in Siberia and Barnaul it was ultrahigh. In the early twentieth century, European Russia and the Urals faced a decline in infant mortality. In Barnaul, the rate of the decline was significantly lower. Seasonal infant mortality rates showed increased infant mortality from May to August with peak values in June. Summer months accounted for 50.8% of deaths, spring for 21.7%, winter for 15%, and autumn for 12.5%. In the summer, more than 80% of cases in the structure of infant mortality resulted from infectious and intestinal diseases with an overwhelming percentage of intestinal infections (79%). The percentage of deaths from intestinal infections (smallpox, measles) and bacterial diseases (diphtheria, whooping cough, scarlet fever) was less significant. Most of the deaths from respiratory diseases occurred in spring, followed by winter mortality and autumn mortality. The seasonality rate of child mortality (aged between 1 and 4) shows high values in June and July. In the summer, infant mortality was 1.4 times higher than child mortality and 2.1 higher than total mortality. A quarter of infant mortality was neonatal. The extreme level of the infant mortality rate in Barnaul was accounted for primarily by post-neonatal mortality cases.
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