US infant mortality rate falls to record low
The US infant mortality rate fell to an all-time low of just under 5.4 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2025, according to provisional CDC data . That continues a gradual decline — 5.6 in 2023, 5.5 in 2024 — and translates to roughly 19,350 infant deaths last year, about 700 fewer than in 2024. The 2025 figures are preliminary and may be revised, and experts say they cannot yet pin down what is driving the improvement.
The headline number masks persistent gaps. The US rate remains roughly double that of peer countries such as Italy, Japan, Spain and Sweden. Within the country, mortality among Black infants runs more than twice the rate seen among Hispanic, white and Asian American infants, and state-level outcomes diverge sharply — from about 9.65 per 1,000 in Mississippi to under 3 in New Hampshire.