Saga - 2001, Page 108

106 LOFTUR GUTTORMSSON, ÓLÖF GARÐARSDÓTTIR, GUÐMUNDUR HÁLFDANARSON
Summary
This article is the conclusion of the Icelandic part of a Nordic research pro-
ject dealing with the development of child and infant mortality in the
period 1750-1950. Its general aim was to analyze regional differences in
the various Nordic countries, and to determine how cultural factors, and
marital and social status of parents affected the life expectancy of infants
and young children.
For Iceland's part, the goal of this project was twofold. First, the aim
was to extend the data for infant and child mortality back in time, because
official statistics on these factors is only available from the late 1830s and
onwards. Using the registers of six parishes, representing approximately
4.5 percent of the Icelandic population, it was possible to establish a fair-
ly reliable estimate of the development as far back as 1770. Second, the
intention was to explain the radical transition in Icelandic infant and child
mortality during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when
the Icelandic rates declined from a level far higher than for most of its
neighboring countries to one on a par with the lowest rates in Europe.
The article confirms earlier estimates about Icelandic infant mortality;
that is, before the transition in the last quarter of the nineteenth century,
generally between 250 and 350 of every 1000 children bom died in their
first year. The century from 1771-1870 is, however, marked by large fluc-
tuations in this respect, with two extended periods of high mortality
(1771-90 and 1825-70) intersected with three decades of relatively low
mortality rates. The development of child mortality follows the same pat-
tern, although it is generally similar to what can be seen in the neighbor-
ing countries.
When one looks behind the general numbers, great regional variations
in infant mortality rates can be detected in Iceland. Thus, in the period
prior to the transition in the late nineteenth century, the rates were con-
sistently much lower in Iceland's northeastem part and in Reykjavík than
in most of the counties in the south and west. The regional differences
seem to confirm theories about the adverse effects of Icelandic feeding
practices, as various sources indicate that breast-feeding was very uncom-
mon in regions of high-mortality rates, while it seems to have been quite
widespread in the northeast, and in Reykjavík. Relatively good education
of midwives in the northeast and in the capital is one possible explanation
of this pattem, although eighteenth-century commentators had already
noticed that infant mortality was at a consdiderably lower level in the
north than in other parts of Iceland.