Fertility and perinatal and infant mortality in the Jewish population of Beersheba and the Negev, 1972

There were 4,569 Jewish births in the Negev (southern Israel) in 1972, the first year of birth registration by the Unit for Evaluation and Planning of Kupat Holim and the Ben Gurion University Center for Health Sciences. The crude birth rate was 28.8 per 1,000 population, with 130.7 live births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 yr. Total fertility was 3.9 per woman, varying from 3.4 in the kibbutzim and 3.5 in Beersheba to 5.2 in the moshavim (collective settlements) and 3.7 to 6.3 in the development towns. Late fetal and perinatal death rates were 9.4 and 19.0/1,000, and the neonatal and infant mortality rates, 11.0 and 18.1/1,000 respectively. The proportion of males was 0.51, the twinning rate was 9.5/1,000 women delivered, and 1.1% of babies were illegitimate. Low birth weight (< 2.5 kg) was recorded in 6.9% of births. Fifty three percent of births were to immigrant mothers from North Africa; the remainder were divided equally among mothers born in Israel, the Asian Near East, and Western countries. The Asian immigrant group was at high risk for infant death, with a rate of 3.64/1,000 as compared with 14.8, 14.2 and 5.8 recorded for the offspring of mothers born in Israel, North Africa and Western countries, respectively. Patterns of mortality in relation to maternal age, birth order and education were similar to those reported for developed countries.