Follow up...

More on infant mortality:

A campaign encouraging women in China to give birth in hospital has cut newborn deaths by half, says a study in The Lancet.

Researchers from Beijing and London found that babies born in hospital were two to three times less likely to die in their first month than those born at home.

[...]

The neonatal mortality rate in China fell from 24.7 per 1000 livebirths between 1996 and 1998, to 9.3 per 1000 between 2007 and 2008.

This seems to confirm my points in yesterday's post - it has taken a co-ordinated effort and modern technology/infrastructure to make this change (and, presumably, cutting neonate mortality in China has contributed significantly to the global trend). The fact that rural infant mortality is significantly higher seems to confirm this. Obviously, there may be other feed-in factors (better nutrition, education, hygiene, etc.) but they are the vectors of development.