Before anyone gets in my neck, I want to clarify that it is not just a statistic. Don't get misunderstood, please.
The news is that a large study of infant mortality in 15 developed countries (Sweden, France, Denmark, Great Britain, Norway, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, Finland, the United States, Spain, Australia, Canada, Belgium and Japan) revealed that male babies are 24% more likely to die than girls.
Before the discovery of vaccines, the difference was smaller, between 10% and 15%, and then reached 31% in the 70's, a percentage that has been declining in recent years as science has gone moving forward, especially thanks to the practice of caesarean sections and improvements in intensive care for premature children.
The study published in the latest edition of PNAS (Academy of Sciences of the United States) noted that "during the great historical improvements in infant mortality, the growing disadvantage of boys in childhood showed an unexpected level of male vulnerability."
Congenital diseases, complications in childbirth and premature births are the main causes of mortality in newborns.
The curious thing is the difference between both sexes, when at that point they have had identical life forms. Apparently, male babies are more vulnerable to certain factors, while girls have a stronger immune system.
Why this vulnerability? Apparently, it is a biological condition inherent in men that depends on environmental and medical conditions.
For example, children are 60% more likely to be born prematurely as well as to develop respiratory complications to be born before term.
Statistics have also found that caesarean sections are more common in childbirths, probably because of a situation that represents an added complication at the time of giving birth as their physical structure is larger than that of girls.
