Some Preventive Aspects of Abnormal Intrauterine Development

Abstract

Because problems of abnormal intrauterine development are important in infant mortality, they warrant special attention in the United States, where infant mortality is high in spite of the highest per capita expenditure for health in the world. Both medical and sociocultural factors are important in abnormal intrauterine development. Specific etiologic factors are largely unknown, but nongenetic determinants such as poverty, the mother's early environment, the urban setting, and out-of-wedlock pregnancies are potentially controllable and deserve more concern and study.