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Aboriginal People in Manitoba 2000 Chapter 2 : Health

Infant mortality rates are often broken down into two smaller time intervals: neonatal (birth to 28 days) and post-neonatal (28 days to one year). Health Canada notes:

Neonatal mortality rates in general tend to reflect access to services and quality of health care, as well as events during the prenatal period and during and immediately after labour. In contrast, the post-neonatal rate tends to be more sensitive to socioeconomic and environmental factors that may influence the survival of infants.²

Nationally, the rate of neonatal death among First Nations has decreased markedly since 1979 and is now close to the national average. By contrast, the First Nations post-neonatal mortality rate, while it has shown some improvement, remains about triple the national rate:

Significantly, the post-neonatal mortality rate for Canadians in general is lower than the neonatal rate, meaning most infant deaths occur before 28 days. For First Nations, most infant deaths occur after 28 days, when infants and their mothers have left the urban hospital and re-entered the home community and the home. The degree to which the increased infant mortality rate after 28 days is due to access to health services in often-isolated home communities, or to conditions in the home, is not known.