"Why Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes"

[happyslug]

20. Interesting graph

Introduced in 1936, steady almost flat till the 1939-1940 Winter War between Russia and Finland (when the numbers spiked), rapid decline in 1940 and 1941, till Finland joined Hitler in attacking Russia, then as the Fins stopped at their old border the number dropped again, till the crisis of 1944, when the Fins switched sides, kicking out all German Troops with the aid of the Red Army in exchange for a peace treaty. During that crisis the the number spiked again, , then went into a steady decline. A little spike about 1946, another about 1953 and a third minor spike in 1957.

1946 was the year the Cold War harden up, 1953 was the year Stalin died and the big question was who was going to succeed him AND what would Russia due during that crisis of succession. 1957 was the year of the first huge world wide recession since WWII, it was the deepest recession between the Great Depression AND Reagan (It is now #3 since the Great Depression, beat out by Reagan Recession and the "Great recession" of 2008 which in many ways we are still in).

The rest of the spikes seems to be more the result statistical anomalies, i,e, some months are worse then others when it comes to babies.

The overall view, is except for times of National Crisis, the infant mortality rate has steadily dropped.