The rate of infant mortality in Dominica was 12 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2011, with an under-five mortality rate of 13 deaths per 1,000 live births.
Although there has been a consistent and encouraging decline in under-five mortality, which has decreased by a third since 1990 (as shown in Graph 1), Dominica’s under-five mortality rate is not yet in line with the country’s target of six deaths per 1,000 live births, as defined by Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG 4). In 2010 the most prominent known causes of death for children below the age of five years were birth asphyxia (48 per cent), neonatal sepsis (14 per cent) and prematurity (ten per cent). Other contributory causes included neonatal pneumonia (three per cent) and congenital anomalies (seven per cent). In the period 2006-10 Dominica had universal maternal health care.
