title: Infant mortality

text: Levels of socioeconomic development and global integration are inversely related to a nation's infant mortality rate. Dependency perspective occurs in a global capital system. A nation's internal impact is highly influenced by its position in the global economy and has adverse effects on the survival of children in developing countries. Countries can experience disproportionate effects from its trade and stratification within the global system. It aids in the global division of labor, distorting the domestic economy of developing nations. The dependency of developing nations can lead to a reduce rate of economic growth, increase income inequality inter- and intra-national, and adversely affects the wellbeing of a nation's population. A collective cooperation between economic countries plays a role in development policies in the poorer, peripheral, countries of the world.


title: Infant mortality

text: These economic factors present challenges to governments' public health policies. If the nation's ability to raise its own revenues is compromised, governments will lose funding for its health service programs, including services that aim in decreasing infant mortality rates. Peripheral countries face higher levels of vulnerability to the possible negative effects of globalization and trade in relation to key countries in the global market.


title: Infant mortality

text: Even with a strong economy and economic growth (measured by a country's gross national product), the advances of medical technologies may not be felt by everyone, lending itself to increasing social disparities. In England from 2014 to 2017 a rise in infant mortality was experienced disproportionately in the most deprived local authorities where the previously declining trend in infant mortality was reversed with an additional 24 infant deaths per 100,000 live births per year relative to the previous trend


title: Infant mortality

text: In policy, there is a lag time between realization of a problem's possible solution and actual implementation of policy solutions. Infant mortality rates correlate with war, political unrest, and government corruption.


title: Infant mortality

text: In most cases, war-affected areas will experience a significant increase in infant mortality rates. Having a war taking place where a woman is planning on having a baby is not only stressful on the mother and foetus, but also has several detrimental effects.


title: Infant mortality

text: However, many other significant factors influence infant mortality rates in war-torn areas. Health care systems in developing countries in the midst of war often collapse. Attaining basic medical supplies and care becomes increasingly difficult. During the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s Bosnia experienced a 60% decrease in child immunizations. Preventable diseases can quickly become epidemic given the medical conditions during war.


title: Infant mortality

text: Many developing countries rely on foreign aid for basic nutrition. Transport of aid becomes significantly more difficult in times of war. In most situations the average weight of a population will drop substantially. Expecting mothers are affected even more by lack of access to food and water. During the Yugoslav Wars in Bosnia the number of premature babies born increased and the average birth weight decreased.


title: Infant mortality

text: There have been several instances in recent years of systematic rape as a weapon of war. Women who become pregnant as a result of war rape face even more significant challenges in bearing a healthy child. Studies suggest that women who experience sexual violence before or during pregnancy are more likely to experience infant death in their children. Causes of infant mortality in abused women range from physical side effects of the initial trauma to psychological effects that lead to poor adjustment to society. Many women who became pregnant by rape in Bosnia were isolated from their hometowns making life after childbirth exponentially more difficult.


title: Infant mortality

text: High rates of infant mortality occur in developing countries where financial and material resources are scarce and there is a high tolerance to high number of infant deaths. There are circumstances where a number of developing countries to breed a culture where situations of infant mortality such as favoring male babies over female babies are the norm. In developing countries such as Brazil, infant mortality rates are commonly not recorded due to failure to register for death certificates. Failure to register is mainly due to the potential loss of time and money and other indirect costs to the family. Even with resource opportunities such as the 1973 Public Registry Law 6015, which allowed free registration for low-income families, the requirements to qualify hold back individuals who are not contracted workers.


title: Infant mortality

text: Another cultural reason for infant mortality, such as what is happening in Ghana, is that "besides the obvious, like rutted roads, there are prejudices against wives or newborns leaving the house." Because of this it is making it even more difficult for the women and newborns to get the treatment that is available to them and that is needed.


title: Infant mortality

text: Cultural influences and lifestyle habits in the United States can account for some deaths in infants throughout the years. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association "the post neonatal mortality risk (28 to 364 days) was highest among continental Puerto Ricans" compared to babies of the non-Hispanic race. Examples of this include teenage pregnancy, obesity, diabetes and smoking. All are possible causes of premature births, which constitute the second highest cause of infant mortality. Ethnic differences experienced in the United States are accompanied by higher prevalence of behavioral risk factors and sociodemographic challenges that each ethnic group faces.


title: Infant mortality

text: Historically, males have had higher infant mortality rates than females. The difference between male and female infant mortality rates have been dependent on environmental, social, and economic conditions. More specifically, males are biologically more vulnerable to infections and conditions associated with prematurity and development. Before 1970, the reasons for male infant mortality were due to infections, and chronic degenerative diseases. However, since 1970, certain cultures emphasizing males has led to a decrease in the infant mortality gap between males and females. Also, medical advances have resulted in a growing number of male infants surviving at higher rates than females due to the initial high infant mortality rate of males.


title: Infant mortality

text: Genetic components results in newborn females being biologically advantaged when it comes to surviving their first birthday. Males, biologically, have lower chances of surviving infancy in comparison to female babies. As infant mortality rates saw a decrease on a global scale, the gender most affected by infant mortality changed from males experiences a biological disadvantage, to females facing a societal disadvantage. Some developing nations have social and cultural patterns that reflects adult discrimination to favor boys over girls for their future potential to contribute to the household production level. A country's ethnic composition, homogeneous versus heterogeneous, can explain social attitudes and practices. Heterogeneous level is a strong predictor in explaining infant mortality.


title: Infant mortality

text: Birth spacing is the time between births. Births spaced at least three years apart from one another are associated with the lowest rate of mortality. The longer the interval between births, the lower the risk for having any birthing complications, and infant, childhood and maternal mortality. Higher rates of pre-term births, and low birth weight are associated with birth to conception intervals of less than six months and abortion to pregnancy interval of less than six months. Shorter intervals between births increase the chances of chronic and general under-nutrition; 57% of women in 55 developing countries reported birth spaces shorter than three years; 26% report birth spacing of less than two years. Only 20% of post-partum women report wanting another birth within two years; however, only 40% are taking necessary steps such as family planning to achieve the birth intervals they want.


title: Infant mortality

text: Unplanned pregnancies and birth intervals of less than twenty-four months are known to correlate with low birth weights and delivery complications. Also, women who are already small in stature tend to deliver smaller than average babies, perpetuating a cycle of being underweight.


title: Infant mortality

text: To reduce infant mortality rates across the world, health practitioners, governments, and non-governmental organizations have worked to create institutions, programs and policies to generate better health outcomes. Current efforts focus on development of human resources, strengthening health information systems, health services delivery, etc. Improvements in such areas aim to increase regional health systems and aided in efforts to reduce mortality rates.


title: Infant mortality

text: Reductions in infant mortality are possible in any stage of a country's development. Rate reductions are evidence that a country is advancing in human knowledge, social institutions and physical capital. Governments can reduce the mortality rates by addressing the combined need for education (such as universal primary education), nutrition, and access to basic maternal and infant health services. A policy focus has the potential to aid those most at risk for infant and childhood mortality allows rural, poor and migrant populations.


title: Infant mortality

text: Reducing chances of babies being born at low birth weights and contracting pneumonia can be accomplished by improving air quality. Improving hygiene can prevent infant mortality. Home-based technology to chlorinate, filter, and solar disinfection for organic water pollution could reduce cases of diarrhea in children by up to 48%. Improvements in food supplies and sanitation has been shown to work in the United States' most vulnerable populations, one being African Americans. Overall, women's health status need to remain high.


title: Infant mortality

text: Promoting behavioral changes, such as hand washing with soap, can significantly reduce the rate of infant mortality from respiratory and diarrheal diseases. According to UNICEF, hand washing with soap before eating and after using the toilet can save more lives of children by cutting deaths from diarrhea and acute respiratory infections.


title: Infant mortality

text: Focusing on preventing preterm and low birth weight deliveries throughout all populations can help to eliminate cases of infant mortality and decrease health care disparities within communities. In the United States, these two goals have decreased infant mortality rates on a regional population, it has yet to see further progress on a national level.


title: Infant mortality

text: Increasing human resources such as physicians, nurses, and other health professionals will increase the number of skilled attendants and the number of people able to give out immunized against diseases such as measles. Increasing the number of skilled professionals is negatively correlated with maternal, infant, and childhood mortality. With the addition of one physician per 10,000 people, there is a potential for 7.08 fewer infant deaths per 10,000.


title: Infant mortality

text: In certain parts of the U.S., specific modern programs aim to reduce levels of infant mortality. One such program that aims to reduce infant mortality is the "Best Babies Zone" (BBZ) based at the University of California, Berkeley. The BBZ uses the life course approach to address the structural causes of poor birth outcomes and toxic stress in three U.S. neighborhoods. By employing community-generated solutions, the Best Babies Zone's ultimate goal is to achieve health equity in communities that are disproportionately impacted by infant death.


title: Infant mortality

text: When a woman becomes pregnant, certain steps can help to reduce the chance of complications during the pregnancy. Attending regular prenatal care check-ups will help improve the baby's chances of being delivered in safer conditions and surviving. Additionally, taking supplementation, including folic acid, can help reduce the chances of birth defects, a leading cause of infant mortality. Many countries have instituted mandatory folic acid supplementation in their food supply, which has significantly reduced the occurrence of spina bifida, a birth defect, in newborns. Similarly, the fortification of salt with iodine, salt iodization, has helped reduce adverse birth outcomes associated with low iodine levels during pregnancy.


title: Infant mortality

text: Abstinence from alcohol can also decrease the chances of harm to the fetus during pregnancy. Drinking any amount of alcohol during pregnancy may lead to fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) or alcohol related birth defects (ARBD). Tobacco use during pregnancy has also been shown to significantly increase the risk of a preterm or low birth weight birth, both of which are leading causes of infant mortality. Pregnant women should consult with their doctors to best manage any existing health conditions that they have to avoid complications of both their health as well as the fetus. Obese women are at an increased risk of developing complications during pregnancy, including gestational diabetes or pre-eclampsia. Additionally, they are more likely to experience a pre-term birth or have a child with birth defects.


title: Infant mortality

text: Appropriate nutrition for newborns and infants can help keep them healthy and avoid health complications during early childhood. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends exclusively breastfeeding infants for the first 6 months of life, following by a combination of breastfeeding and other sources of food through the next 6 months of life, up to 1 year of age. Infants under 6 months of age who are exclusively breastfed have a lower risk of mortality compared to infants who receive a combination of breast milk and other food, as well as no breast milk at all. For this reason, breast feeding is favored over formula feeding by healthcare professionals.


title: Infant mortality

text: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines infants as those 1 month of age to 1 year of age. For these infants, the CDC recommends the following vaccinations: Hepatitis B (HepB), Rotavirus (RV), Haemophilus Influenzae type B (HIB), Pneumococcal Conjugate (PCV13), Inactivated Poliovirus (IPV < 18 yrs), Influenza, Varicella, Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR), and Diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis (DTapP < 7yrs). Each of these vaccinations are given at particular age ranges depending on the vaccination and are required to be done in a series of 1 to 3 doses over time depending on the vaccination.


title: Infant mortality

text: The efficacy of these vaccinations can be seen immediately following their introduction to society. Following the advent of the Pneumococcal Conjugate vaccine (PCV13) in the United States in the year 2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports studies done in 2004 had shown a 57% decline invasive penicillin-resistant strains of diseases and a 59% reduction in multiple antibiotic resistant strains that could lead to mortality among infants. This reduction was even greater for children under 2 years of age with studies finding an 81% reduction in those same strains.


title: Infant mortality

text: As mentioned in a previous section, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the leading cause of infant mortality for those 1 month of age to 1 year of age. Immunizations, when given in accordance to proper guidelines, have shown to reduce the risk of SIDS by 50%. For this reason, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) both recommend immunizations in accordance to their guidelines.


title: Infant mortality

text: It has been well documented that increased education among mothers, communities, and local health workers results in better family planning, improvement on children's health, and lower rates of children's deaths. High-risk areas, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, have demonstrated that an increase in women's education attainment leads to a reduction in infant mortality by about 35%. Similarly, coordinated efforts to train community health workers in diagnosis, treatment, malnutrition prevention, reporting and referral services has reduced infant mortality in children under 5 as much as 38%. Public health campaigns centered around the "First 1,000 Days" of conception have been successful in providing cost-effective supplemental nutrition programs, as well as assisting young mothers in sanitation, hygiene and breastfeeding promotion. Increased intake of nutrients and better sanitation habits have a positive impact on health, especially developing children. Educational attainment and public health campaigns provide the knowledge and means to practice better habits and leads to better outcomes against infant mortality rates.


title: Infant mortality

text: Awareness of health services, education, and economic opportunities provide means to sustain and increase chance of development and survival. A decrease in GDP, for example, results in increased rates of infant mortality. Negative effects on household income reduces amount being spent on food and healthcare, affecting the quality of life and access to medical services to ensure full development and survival. On the contrary, increased household income translates to more access to nutrients and healthcare, reducing the risks associated with malnutrition and infant mortality. Moreover, increased aggregate household incomes will produce better health facilities, water and sewer infrastructures for the entire community.


title: Infant mortality

text: The infant mortality rate correlates very strongly with, and is among the best predictors of, state failure. IMR is therefore also a useful indicator of a country's level of health or development, and is a component of the physical quality of life index.


title: Infant mortality

text: However, the method of calculating IMR often varies widely between countries and is based on how they define a live birth and how many premature infants are born in the country. Reporting of infant mortality rates can be inconsistent, and may be understated, depending on a nation's live birth criterion, vital registration system, and reporting practices. The reported IMR provides one statistic which reflects the standard of living in each nation. Changes in the infant mortality rate reflect social and technical capacities of a nation's population. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a live birth as any infant born demonstrating independent signs of life, including breathing, heartbeat, umbilical cord pulsation or definite movement of voluntary muscles. This definition is used in Austria, for example. The WHO definition is also used in Germany, but with one slight modification: muscle movement is not considered to be a sign of life. Many countries, however, including certain European states (e.g. France) and Japan, only count as live births cases where an infant breathes at birth, which makes their reported IMR numbers somewhat lower and increases their rates of perinatal mortality. In the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, for instance, requirements for live birth are even higher.


title: Infant mortality

text: Although many countries have vital registration systems and certain reporting practices, there are many inaccuracies, particularly in undeveloped nations, in the statistics of the number of infants dying. Studies have shown that comparing three information sources (official registries, household surveys, and popular reporters) that the "popular death reporters" are the most accurate. Popular death reporters include midwives, gravediggers, coffin builders, priests, and others—essentially people who knew the most about the child's death. In developing nations, access to vital registries, and other government-run systems which record births and deaths, is difficult for poor families for several reasons. These struggles force stress on families, and make them take drastic measures in unofficial death ceremonies for their deceased infants. As a result, government statistics will inaccurately reflect a nation's infant mortality rate. Popular death reporters have first-hand information, and provided this information can be collected and collated, can provide reliable data which provide a nation with accurate death counts and meaningful causes of deaths that can be measured/studied.


title: Infant mortality

text: Another challenge to comparability is the practice of counting frail or premature infants who die before the normal due date as miscarriages (spontaneous abortions) or those who die during or immediately after childbirth as stillborn. Therefore, the quality of a country's documentation of perinatal mortality can matter greatly to the accuracy of its infant mortality statistics. This point is reinforced by the demographer Ansley Coale, who finds dubiously high ratios of reported stillbirths to infant deaths in Hong Kong and Japan in the first 24 hours after birth, a pattern that is consistent with the high recorded sex ratios at birth in those countries. It suggests not only that many female infants who die in the first 24 hours are misreported as stillbirths rather than infant deaths, but also that those countries do not follow WHO recommendations for the reporting of live births and infant deaths.


title: Infant mortality

text: Another seemingly paradoxical finding, is that when countries with poor medical services introduce new medical centers and services, instead of declining, the reported IMRs often increase for a time. This is mainly because improvement in access to medical care is often accompanied by improvement in the registration of births and deaths. Deaths that might have occurred in a remote or rural area, and not been reported to the government, might now be reported by the new medical personnel or facilities. Thus, even if the new health services reduce the actual IMR, the reported IMR may increase.


title: Infant mortality

text: Collecting the accurate statistics of infant mortality rate could be an issue in some rural communities in developing countries. In those communities, some other alternative methods for calculating infant mortality rate are emerged, for example, popular death reporting and household survey.


title: Infant mortality

text: The country-to-country variation in child mortality rates is huge, and growing wider despite the progress. Among the world's roughly 200 nations, only Somalia showed no decrease in the under-5 mortality rate over the past two decades. The lowest rate in 2011 was in Singapore, which had 2.6 deaths of children under age 5 per 1,000 live births. The highest was in Sierra Leone, which had 185 child deaths per 1,000 births. The global rate is 51 deaths per 1,000 births. For the United States, the rate is eight per 1,000 births.


title: Infant mortality

text: Infant mortality rate (IMR) is not only a group of statistic but instead it is a reflection of the socioeconomic development and effectively represents the presence of medical services in the countries. IMR is an effective resource for the health department to make decision on medical resources reallocation. IMR also formulates the global health strategies and help evaluate the program success. The existence of IMR helps solve the inadequacies of the other vital statistic systems for global health as most of the vital statistic systems usually neglect the infant mortality statistic number from the poor. There are certain amounts of unrecorded infant deaths in the rural area as they do not have information about infant mortality rate statistic or do not have the concept about reporting early infant death.


title: Infant mortality

text: The exclusion of any high-risk infants from the denominator or numerator in reported IMRs can cause problems in making comparisons. Many countries, including the United States, Sweden and Germany, count an infant exhibiting any sign of life as alive, no matter the month of gestation or the size, but according to United States some other countries differ in these practices. All of the countries named adopted the WHO definitions in the late 1980s or early 1990s, which are used throughout the European Union. However, in 2009, the US CDC issued a report that stated that the American rates of infant mortality were affected by the United States' high rates of premature babies compared to European countries. It also outlined the differences in reporting requirements between the United States and Europe, noting that France, the Czech Republic, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Poland do not report all live births of babies under 500 g and/or 22 weeks of gestation. However, the differences in reporting are unlikely to be the primary explanation for the high rate of infant mortality in the United States' compared with its peer countries at a similar level of economic development. Rather, the report concluded that the primary reason for the United States' higher infant mortality rate when compared with Europe was the United States' much higher percentage of preterm births.


title: Infant mortality

text: Until the 1990s, Russia and the Soviet Union did not count, as a live birth or as an infant death, extremely premature infants (less than 1,000 g, less than 28 weeks gestational age, or less than 35 cm in length) that were born alive (breathed, had a heartbeat, or exhibited voluntary muscle movement) but failed to survive for at least seven days. Although such extremely premature infants typically accounted for only about 0.5% of all live-born children, their exclusion from both the numerator and the denominator in the reported IMR led to an estimated 22%–25% lower reported IMR. In some cases, too, perhaps because hospitals or regional health departments were held accountable for lowering the IMR in their catchment area, infant deaths that occurred in the 12th month were "transferred" statistically to the 13th month (i.e., the second year of life), and thus no longer classified as an infant death.


title: Infant mortality

text: In certain rural developing areas, such as northeastern Brazil, infant births are often not recorded in the first place, resulting in the discrepancies between the infant mortality rate (IMR) and the actual number of infant deaths. Access to vital registry systems for infant births and deaths is an extremely difficult and expensive task for poor parents living in rural areas. Government and bureaucracies tend to show an insensitivity to these parents and their recent suffering from a deceased child and produce broad disclaimers in the IMR reports that the information has not been properly reported, resulting in these discrepancies. Little has been done to address the underlying structural problems of the vital registry systems in respect to the lack of reporting from parents in rural areas, and in turn has created a gap between the official and popular meanings of child death. It is also argued that the bureaucratic separation of vital death recording from cultural death rituals is to blame for the inaccuracy of the infant mortality rate (IMR). Vital death registries often fail to recognize the cultural implications and importance of infant deaths. It is not to be said that vital registry systems are not an accurate representation of a region's socio-economic situation, but this is only the case if these statistics are valid, which is unfortunately not always the circumstance. "Popular death reporters" is an alternative method for collecting and processing statistics on infant and child mortality. Many regions may benefit from "popular death reporters" who are culturally linked to infants may be able to provide more accurate statistics on the incidence of infant mortality. According to ethnographic data, "popular death reporters" refers to people who had inside knowledge of "anjinhos", including the grave-digger, gatekeeper, midwife, popular healers etc.—all key participants in mortuary rituals. By combining the methods of household surveys, vital registries, and asking "popular death reporters" this can increase the validity of child mortality rates, but there are many barriers that can reflect the validity of our statistics of infant mortality. One of these barriers are political economic decisions. Numbers are exaggerated when international funds are being doled out; and underestimated during reelection.


title: Infant mortality

text: The bureaucratic separation of vital death reporting and cultural death rituals stems in part due to structural violence. Individuals living in rural areas of Brazil need to invest large capital for lodging and travel in order to report infant birth to a Brazilian Assistance League office. The negative financial aspects deters registration, as often individuals are of lower income and cannot afford such expenses. Similar to the lack of birth reporting, families in rural Brazil face difficult choices based on already existing structural arrangements when choosing to report infant mortality. Financial constraints such as reliance on food supplementations may also lead to skewed infant mortality data.


title: Infant mortality

text: In developing countries such as Brazil the deaths of impoverished infants are regularly unrecorded into the countries vital registration system; this causes a skew statistically. Culturally validity and contextual soundness can be used to ground the meaning of mortality from a statistical standpoint. In northeast Brazil they have accomplished this standpoint while conducting an ethnographic study combined with an alternative method to survey infant mortality. These types of techniques can develop quality ethnographic data that will ultimately lead to a better portrayal of the magnitude of infant mortality in the region. Political economic reasons have been seen to skew the infant mortality data in the past when governor Ceara devised his presidency campaign on reducing the infant mortality rate during his term in office. By using this new way of surveying, these instances can be minimized and removed, overall creating accurate and sound data.


title: Infant mortality

text: For the world, and for both less developed countries (LDCs) and more developed countries (MDCs), IMR declined significantly between 1960 and 2001. According to the State of the World's Mothers report by Save the Children, the world IMR declined from 126 in 1960 to 57 in 2001. The global neonatal mortality rate, NMR, decreased from 36.6 in 1990 to 18.0 in 2017.


title: Infant mortality

text: However, IMR was, and remains, higher in LDCs. In 2001, the IMR for LDCs (91) was about 10 times as large as it was for MDCs (8). On average, for LDCs, the IMR is 17 times higher than that of MDCs. Also, while both LDCs and MDCs made significant reductions in IMR, reductions among less developed countries are, on average, much less than those among the more developed countries. Among many low- and middle-income countries, there is also substantial variation in infant mortality rate at a subnational level.


title: Infant mortality

text: A factor of about 67 separate countries with the highest and lowest reported infant mortality rates. The top and bottom five countries by this measure (taken from The World Factbook's 2013 estimates) are shown below.


title: Infant mortality

text: Of the 27 most developed countries, the U.S. has the highest Infant Mortality Rate, despite spending much more on health care per capita. Significant racial and socio-economic differences in the United States affect the IMR, in contrast with other developed countries, which have more homogeneous populations. In particular, IMR varies greatly by race in the US. The average IMR for the whole country is therefore not a fair representation of the wide variations that exist between segments of the population. Many theories have been explored as to why these racial differences exist with socio economic factors usually coming out as a reasonable explanation. However, more studies have been conducted around this matter, and the largest advancement is around the idea of stress and how it affects pregnancy.


title: Infant mortality

text: In the 1850s, the infant mortality rate in the United States was estimated at 216.8 per 1,000 babies born for whites and 340.0 per 1,000 for African Americans, but rates have significantly declined in the West in modern times. This declining rate has been mainly due to modern improvements in basic health care, technology, and medical advances. In the last century, the infant mortality rate has decreased by 93%. Overall, the rates have decreased drastically from 20 deaths in 1970 to 6.9 deaths in 2003 (per every 1000 live births). In 2003, the leading causes of infant mortality in the United States were congenital anomalies, disorders related to immaturity, AIDS, and maternal complications. Babies born with low birth weight increased to 8.1% while cigarette smoking during pregnancy declined to 10.2%. This reflected the amount of low birth weights concluding that 12.4% of births from smokers were low birth weights compared with 7.7% of such births from non-smokers. According to the "New York Times", "the main reason for the high rate is preterm delivery, and there was a 10% increase in such births from 2000 to 2006." Between 2007 and 2011, however, the preterm birth rate has decreased every year. In 2011 there was an 11.73% rate of babies born before the 37th week of gestation, down from a high of 12.80% in 2006.


title: Infant mortality

text: Economic expenditures on labor and delivery and neonatal care are relatively high in the United States. A conventional birth averages US$9,775 with a C-section costing US$15,041. Preterm births in the US have been estimated to cost $51,600 per child, with a total yearly cost of $26.2 billion. Despite this spending, several reports state that infant mortality rate in the United States is significantly higher than in other developed nations. Estimates vary; the CIA's "World Factbook" ranks the US 55th internationally in 2014, with a rate of 6.17, while the UN figures from 2005 to 2010 place the US 34th.


title: Infant mortality

text: Aforementioned differences in measurement could play a substantial role in the disparity between the US and other nations. A non-viable live birth in the US could be registered as a stillbirth in similarly developed nations like Japan, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, the Netherlands, and France—thereby reducing the infant death count. Neonatal intensive care is also more likely to be applied in the US to marginally viable infants, although such interventions have been found to increase both costs and disability. A study following the implementation of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act of 2002 found universal resuscitation of infants born between 20 and 23 weeks increased the neonatal spending burden by $313.3 million while simultaneously decreasing quality-adjusted life years by 329.3.


title: Infant mortality

text: The vast majority of research conducted in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century indicates that African-American infants are more than twice as likely to die in their first year of life than white infants. Although following a decline from 13.63 to 11.46 deaths per 1000 live births from 2005 to 2010, non-Hispanic black mothers continued to report a rate 2.2 times as high as that for non-Hispanic white mothers.


title: Infant mortality

text: Contemporary research findings have demonstrated that nationwide racial disparities in infant mortality are linked to the experiential state of the mother and that these disparities cannot be totally accounted for by socio-economic, behavioral or genetic factors. The Hispanic paradox, an effect observed in other health indicators, appears in the infant mortality rate, as well. Hispanic mothers see an IMR comparable to non-Hispanic white mothers, despite lower educational attainment and economic status. A study in North Carolina, for example, concluded that "white women who did not complete high school have a lower infant mortality rate than black college graduates." According to Mustillo's CARDIA (Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults) study, "self reported experiences of racial discrimination were associated with pre-term and low-birthweight deliveries, and such experiences may contribute to black-white disparities in prenatal outcomes." Likewise, dozens of population-based studies indicate that "the subjective, or perceived experience of racial discrimination is strongly associated with an increased risk of infant death and with poor health prospects for future generations of African Americans."


title: Infant mortality

text: While earlier parts of this article have addressed the racial differences in infant deaths, a closer look into the effects of racial differences within the country is necessary to view discrepancies. Non-Hispanic Black women lead all other racial groups in IMR with a rate of 11.3, while the Infant Mortality Rate among white women is 5.1. Black women in the United States experience a shorter life expectancy than white women, so while a higher IMR amongst black women is not necessarily out of line, it is still rather disturbing. While the popular argument leads to the idea that due to the trend of a lower socio-economic status had by black women there is in an increased likelihood of a child suffering. While this does correlate, the theory that it is the contributing factor falls apart when we look at Latino IMR in the United States. Latino people are almost just as likely to experience poverty as blacks in the U.S., however, the Infant Mortality Rate of Latinos is much closer to white women than it is to black women. The Poverty Rates of blacks and Latinos are 24.1% and 21.4% respectively. If there is a direct correlation, then the IMR of these two groups should be rather similar, however, blacks have an IMR double that of Latinos. Also, as black women move out of poverty or never experienced it in the first place, their IMR is not much lower than their counterparts experiencing higher levels of poverty.


title: Infant mortality

text: Some believe black women are predisposed to a higher IMR, meaning ancestrally speaking, all black women from African descent should experience an elevated rate. This theory is quickly disproven by looking at women of African descent who have immigrated to the United States. These women who come from a completely different social context are not prone to the higher IMR experienced by American-born black women.


title: Infant mortality

text: Tyan Parker Dominguez at the University of Southern California offers a theory to explain the disproportionally high IMR among black women in the United States. She claims African American women experience stress at much higher rates than any other group in the country. Stress produces particular hormones that induce labor and contribute to other pregnancy problems. Considering early births are one of the leading causes of death of infants under the age of one, induced labor is a very legitimate factor. The idea of stress spans socio-economic status as Parker Dominguez claims stress for lower-class women comes from unstable family life and chronic worry over poverty. For black middle-class women, battling racism, real or perceived, can be an extreme stressor.


title: Infant mortality

text: Arline Geronimus, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health calls the phenomenon "weathering". She claims constantly dealing with disadvantages and racial prejudice causes black women's birth outcomes to deteriorate with age. Therefore, younger black women may experience stress with pregnancy due to social and economic factors, but older women experience stress at a compounding rate and therefore have pregnancy complications aside from economic factors.


title: Infant mortality

text: Mary O. Hearst, a professor in the Department of Public Health at Saint Catherine University, researched the effects of segregation on the African American community to see if it contributed to the high IMR amongst black children. Hearst claims that residential segregation contributes to the high rates because of the political, economic, and negative health implications it poses on black mothers regardless of their socioeconomic status. Racism, economic disparities, and sexism in segregated communities are all examples of the daily stressors that pregnant black women face that can affect their pregnancies with conditions such as pre-eclampsia and hypertension.


title: Infant mortality

text: Studies have also shown that high IMR is due to the inadequate care that pregnant African Americans receive compared to other women in the country. In another study, it was shown that Black patients were more likely to receive Ibuprofen after surgery instead of Oxycodone. Several peer-reviewed articles have documented a difference in the levels of care a patient receives when they were black even when they had insurance. IMR does not decrease based on age, or when accounting for higher education suggesting that there is a racial element. This unequal treatment stems from the idea that there are racial medical differences and is also rooted in racial biases and controlled images of black women. Because of this unequal treatment, research on maternal and prenatal care received by African American women and their infants, finds that black women do not receive the same urgency in medical care; they are also not taken as seriously regarding pain they feel or complications they think they are having, as exemplified by the complications tennis-star Serena Williams faced during her delivery.


title: Infant mortality

text: There is additional element that must be considered, the effect of both race and gender. Misogynoir is a commonly cited and overlooked issue. Black feminists have often been cited as the backbone of numerous Civil Rights events, but feel they are overlooked when it comes to meaningful change for that positively changes the lives of Black women primarily. During the June 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, many black feminists criticized the movement for excluding them. When examined through this lens, the increased rates of IMR of African American women becomes a matter of equity and an issue of social justice.


title: Infant mortality

text: Strides have been made, however, to combat this epidemic. In Los Angeles County, health officials have partnered with non-profits around the city to help black women after the delivery of their child. One non-profit in particular has made a large impact on many lives is Great Beginnings For Black Babies in Inglewood. The non-profit centers around helping women deal with stress by forming support networks, keeping an open dialogue around race and family life, and also finding these women a secure place in the workforce.


title: Infant mortality

text: Some research argues that to end high IMR amongst black children, the country needs to fix the social and societal issues that plague African Americans. Some scholars argue that Issues such as institutional racism, mass incarceration, poverty, and health care disparities that are present amongst the African American country need to be addressed by the United States Government in order for policy to be created to combat these issues. Following this theory, if institutional inequalities are addresses and repaired by the United States Government, daily stressors for African Americans, and African American women in particular, will be reduced, therefore lessening the risk of complications in pregnancy and infant mortality. Others argue that adding diversity in the health care industry can help reduce the high IMR because more representation can tackle deep-rooted racial biases and stereotypes that exist towards African American women. Another more recent form of action to reduce high IMR amongst black children is the use of doulas throughout pregnancy.


title: Infant mortality

text: A study published in the British Medical Journal in 2019 found that the rate of infant mortality in England had increased with an additional 24 infant deaths per 100 000 live births per year. There was no significant change from the pre-existing trend in the most affluent local authorities. The rise disproportionately affected the poorest areas of the country, and was attributed largely to rising child poverty, as a result of sustained reductions in the welfare benefits available to families with children.


title: Infant mortality

text: It was in the early 1900s that countries around the world started to notice that there was a need for better child health care services. Europe started this rally, the United States fell behind them by creating a campaign to decrease the infant mortality rate. With this program, they were able to lower the IMR to 10 deaths rather than 100 deaths per every 1000 births. Infant mortality was also seen as a social problem when it was being noticed as a national problem. American women who had middle class standing with an educational background started to create a movement that provided housing for families of a lower class. By starting this, they were able to establish public health care and government agencies that were able to make more sanitary and healthier environments for infants. Medical professionals helped further the cause for infant health by creating a pediatrics field that was experienced in medicine for children.


title: Infant mortality

text: Decreases in infant mortality in given countries across the world during the 20th century have been linked to several common trends, scientific advancements, and social programs. Some of these include the state improving sanitation, improving access to healthcare, improving education, and the development of medical advancements such as penicillin, and safer blood transfusions.


title: Infant mortality

text: In the United States, improving infant mortality in the early half of the 20th century meant tackling environmental factors. Improving sanitation, and especially access to safe drinking water, helped the United States dramatically decrease infant mortality, a growing concern in the United States since the 1850s. On top of these environmental factors, during this time the United States endeavored to increase education and awareness regarding infant mortality. Pasteurization of milk also helped the United States combat infant mortality in the early 1900s, a practice which allowed the United States to curb disease in infants. These factors, on top of a general increase in the standard of living for those living in urban settings, helped the United States make dramatic improvements in their rates of infant mortality in the early 20th century.


title: Infant mortality

text: Although the overall infant mortality rate was sharply dropping during this time, within the United States infant mortality varied greatly among racial and socio-economic groups. The change in infant mortality from 1915 to 1933 was, for the white population, 98.6 in 1,000 to 52.8 in 1,000, and for the black population, 181.2 in 1,000 to 94.4 in 1,000. Studies imply that this has a direct correlation with relative economic conditions between these populations. Additionally, infant mortality in southern states was consistently 2% higher than other states in the US across a 20-year period from 1985. Southern states also tend to perform worse in predictors for higher infant mortality, such as per capita income and poverty rate.


title: Infant mortality

text: In the latter half of the 20th century, a focus on greater access to medical care for women spurred declines in infant mortality in the United States. The implementation of Medicaid, granting wider access to healthcare, contributed to a dramatic decrease in infant mortality, in addition to access to greater access to legal abortion and family-planning care, such the IUD and the birth control pill.


title: Infant mortality

text: In the decades following the 1970s, the United States' decreasing infant mortality rates began to slow, falling behind China's, Cuba's, and other developed countries'. Funding for the federally subsidized Medicaid and Maternal and Infant Care was sharply reduced, and availability of prenatal care greatly decreased for low-income parents.


title: Infant mortality

text: The People's Republic of China's growth of medical resources in the latter half of the 20th century partly explains its dramatic improvement with regards to infant mortality during this time. Part of this increase included the adoption of the Rural Cooperative Medical System, which was founded in the 1950s. The Cooperative Medical System granted healthcare access to previously underserved rural populations, is estimated to have covered 90% of China's rural population throughout the 1960s. The Cooperative Medical System achieved an infant mortality rate of 25.09 per 1,000. The Cooperative Medical System was later defunded, leaving many rural populations to rely on an expensive fee-for-service system, although the rate continued to decline in general. This change in medical systems caused a socio-economic gap in accessibility to medical care in China, which fortunately was not reflected in its infant mortality rate of decline. Prenatal care was increasingly used, even as the Cooperative Medical System was replaced, and delivery assistance remained accessible.


title: Infant mortality

text: China's one-child policy, adopted in the 1980s, negatively impacted its infant mortality. Women carrying unapproved pregnancies faced state consequences and social stigma and were thus less likely to use prenatal care. Additionally, economic realities and long-held cultural factors incentivized male offspring, leading some families who already had sons to avoid prenatal care or professional delivery services, and causing China to have unusually high female infant mortality rates during this time.


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: Stephen Joseph Flemmi (born June 9, 1934) is an American gangster and convicted murderer and was a close associate of Winter Hill Gang boss Whitey Bulger. Beginning in 1975, Flemmi was a top echelon informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: Despite delivering a great deal of intelligence about the inner workings of the Patriarca crime family, Flemmi's own criminal activities proved a public relations nightmare for the FBI. He was ultimately brought up on charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and pleaded guilty in return for a sentence of life in prison.


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: Stephen Joseph Flemmi was the eldest of three sons (the two brothers were Michael Flemmi and Vincent Flemmi) born to Italian immigrants Giovanni Flemmi (1892–1991), and Mary Irene (née Misserville) Flemmi (1912–2000), who was of Irish descent. He was raised in the Orchard Park tenement located at 25 Ambrose Street in Roxbury, Massachusetts. His father was a bricklayer and veteran of the Royal Italian Army during World War I, and his mother was a full-time homemaker.


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: Flemmi enlisted in the Army in 1951 at the age of 17 and served two tours of duty in Korea with the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team. He was awarded the Silver Star and Bronze Star Medal decorations for valor and honorably discharged in 1955.


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: In 1965, James J. "Whitey" Bulger was released from Federal prison after serving a nine-year sentence for robbing banks. After a few years of working as a janitor, he became an enforcer for South Boston mob boss Donald Killeen. After Killeen was murdered by an enforcer for the Mullen Gang, Winter Hill Gang boss Howie Winter mediated the dispute between Bulger and the remaining Killeens and the Mullens, who were led by Patrick Nee. Winter soon chose Bulger as his man in South Boston. Shortly afterward, Bulger became partners with Flemmi.


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: Bulger allegedly told Flemmi that he knew his secret. Flemmi has insisted that he did not know at the time that Bulger was also an informant. Kevin Weeks, however, insists that Flemmi's story is untrue. He considers it too much of a coincidence that Bulger became an informant a year after becoming Flemmi's partner. He has written of his belief that Flemmi had probably helped to build a Federal case against him. Weeks has said that Bulger was likely forced to choose between supplying information to the FBI or returning to prison.


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: In the 1950s, Flemmi was married to an Irish-American woman named Jeanette, from whom he later became estranged. By 1980, he planned to divorce Jeanette to marry his longtime mistress, Marilyn DeSilva, but it is unknown whether he ever followed through with the legal actions. Throughout his life, Flemmi was engaged in clandestine affairs with several other women, including sisters Debra Davis and Michelle Davis, and Deborah Hussey.


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: Flemmi met Debra Davis at a jewelry store, and the couple dated for more than seven years. In 1981, Bulger is said to have killed Davis because she knew that Flemmi was an informant.


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: Four years after killing Davis, in 1985, Flemmi and Bulger killed Deborah Hussey, who was also Flemmi's stepdaughter (born to his common-law wife, Marion A. Hussey). Deborah was first sexually molested by Flemmi in her teens—she informed her mother that Flemmi had molested her for years—and had been his girlfriend since. In the days prior to her murder, Hussey was close to breaking up with Flemmi and telling her mother about their relationship, which is thought to have been the motive for her murder.


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: It is thought that Flemmi, Bulger, and Weeks lured her to the house at 799 East Third Street in South Boston and garrotted her. Her body was then buried in the basement. According to Kevin Weeks,


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: In 1997, shortly after "The Boston Globe" disclosed that Bulger and Flemmi had been informants, former Bulger confidant Kevin Weeks met with John Connolly, who showed him a photocopy of Bulger's FBI informant file. In order to explain Bulger and Flemmi's status as informants, Connolly said, "The Mafia was going against Jimmy and Stevie, so Jimmy and Stevie went against them." According to Weeks,


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: In December 1994, Connolly informed Bulger and Flemmi that several imprisoned Jewish-American bookmakers had agreed to testify to paying them protection money. As a result, sealed indictments had come from the Department of Justice and the FBI was due to make arrests during the Christmas season. In response, Bulger fled Boston on December 23, 1994, accompanied by his common law wife, Catherine Greig.


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: According to Kevin Weeks, Flemmi, however, chose to remain in Boston and was swiftly taken into custody and incarcerated at the Plymouth County House of Correction.


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: During the discovery phase, two of Flemmi's co-defendants, Boston mafiosi Frank Salemme and Bobby DeLuca, were listening to tape from a roving bug, which is normally authorized when the FBI has no advance knowledge of where criminal activity will take place. They overheard two of the agents who were listening in on the bug mention that they should have told one of their informants to give "a list of questions" to the other wiseguys. When their lawyer, Tony Cardinale, learned about this, he realized that the FBI had lied about the basis for a roving bug in order to protect an informant. Suspecting that this was not the only occasion that this happened, Cardinale sought to force prosecutors to reveal the identities of any informants used in connection with the case.


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: Eventually, both Bulger and Flemmi were revealed to be FBI informants. Flemmi believed that as a result, he had protection from the FBI, but not immunity. He initially planned to prove through his own testimony and that of others that he was being prosecuted for crimes that were effectively authorized by the FBI. He believed that as a result, Judge Mark L. Wolf would have no choice but to throw out the entire indictment. Flemmi's problem was that he couldn't really come clean. Without immunity, he couldn't admit to killings he hadn't been charged with. By the time Flemmi took the stand, in August 1998, John Martorano had pleaded guilty and started outlining the details of almost twenty murders he'd committed. Many of his murders had been done at the direction of Bulger and Flemmi, who had paid him more than $1 million during his years as a wanted fugitive between 1978 and 1995. To many questions about the murders Flemmi was involved in, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment.


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: However, by 2000, it was obvious this gambit had failed. Out of desperation, he ordered Weeks to get in touch with retired state police lieutenant Richard J. Schneiderhan, a lifelong friend who had been on Winter Hill's payroll for virtually his entire career, to leak information about several wiretaps investigators were monitoring in hopes of tracking down Bulger. However, when Weeks reached a plea bargain a year later, he admitted Schneiderhan's role in the leak. Schneiderhan was ultimately convicted of obstructing justice and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. In 2000, Flemmi's brother Michael, then a retired Boston Police Department officer, was arrested for moving an arsenal of more than 70 weapons from their mother's shed after learning that it was to be the target of a search warrant. He was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. A year later, he pleaded guilty to selling a load of Flemmi's stolen jewelry for $40,000.


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: By 2003, Flemmi realized he was at the end of his tether. Salemme and several others had joined Weeks in turning informer, and had disclosed enough information to ensure Flemmi would die in prison. He also potentially faced the death penalty for murders in Florida and Oklahoma. In October, Flemmi pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Boston to 10 counts of murder and accepted a sentence of life in prison without parole. He made the decision as a part of a deal to reduce the sentence for his brother, Michael Flemmi.


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: Flemmi testified against Connolly at the latter's trial for the murder of John Callahan, the former president of World Jai Alai. Callahan had been killed in 1981 after he was implicated in the murder of his successor as president, Roger Wheeler. According to Flemmi, Connolly told him and Bulger that Callahan could potentially turn state's evidence and implicate them in Wheeler's murder. He also testified against Bulger in the latter's 2013 trial for murder and racketeering, at which Bulger was sentenced to life plus five years.


title: Stephen Flemmi

text: Stephen Flemmi and Whitey Bulger are alleged to have committed statutory rape against numerous underage girls, some as young as 13, during the 1970s and 80s, deliberately getting them hooked on heroin and then sexually exploiting them for years.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: The Crown of the Kingdom of Poland (; Latin: "Corona Regni Poloniae"), known also as the Polish Crown, is the common name for the historic Late Middle Ages territorial possessions of the King of Poland, including the Kingdom of Poland proper. The Polish Crown was at the helm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1569 to 1795.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: The Kingdom of Poland has been traditionally dated back to c. 966, when Mieszko I and his pagan Slavic realm joined Christian Europe (Baptism of Poland), establishing the state of Poland, a process started by his Polan Piast dynasty ancestors. His oldest son and successor, Prince Bolesław I Chrobry, Duke of Poland, became the first crowned King of Poland in 1025.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: The Union of Krewo was a set of prenuptial agreements made in the Kreva Castle on August 13, 1385. Once Jogaila confirmed the prenuptial agreements on August 14, 1385, Poland and Lithuania formed a personal union. The agreements included the adoption of Christianity, repatriation of lands "stolen" from Poland by its neighbours, and "terras suas Lithuaniae et Russiae Coronae Regni Poloniae perpetuo applicare", the clause which formed the personal union. After being baptized at the Wawel Cathedral in Kraków on February 15, 1386, Jogaila began to formally use the name Władysław. Three days after his baptism, the marriage between Jadwiga and Władysław II Jagiełło took place.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: The Union of Lublin created the single state of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth on July 1, 1569 with a real union between the Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Before then, the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania only had a personal union. The Union of Lublin also made the Crown an elective monarchy; this ended the Jagiellonian dynasty once Henry de Valois was elected on May 16, 1573 as monarch.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: On May 30, 1574, two months after Henry de Valois was crowned King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania on February 22, 1574, he was made King of France, and was crowned King of France on February 13, 1575. He left the throne of the Crown on May 12, 1575, two months after he was crowned King of France. Anna Jagiellon was elected after him.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: The Constitution of May 3, 1791 is the second-oldest, codified national constitution in history, and the oldest codified national constitution in Europe; the oldest being the United States Constitution. It was called the Government Act ("Ustawa Rządowa") Drafting for it began on October 6, 1788, and lasted 32 months. Stanisław II Augustus was the principal author of the Constitution, and he wanted the Crown to be a constitutional monarchy, similar to the one in Great Britain. On May 3, 1791, the Great Sejm convened, and they read and adopted the new constitution. It enfranchised the bourgeoisie, separated the government into three branches, abolished liberum veto, and stopped the abuses of the Repnin Sejm.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: It made Poland a constitutional monarchy with the King as the head of the executive branch with his cabinet of ministers, called the Guardians of the Laws. The legislative branch was bicameral with an elected Sejm and an appointed Senate; the King was given the power to break ties in the Senate, and the head of the Sejm was the Sejm Marshal. The Crown Tribunal, the highest appellate court in the Crown, was reformed. The Sejm would elect their judges for the Sejm Court (the Crown's parliamentary court) from their deputies ("posłowie").


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: The Government Act angered Catherine II who believed that Poland needed permission from the Russian Empire for any political reform; she argued that Poland had fallen prey to radical Jacobinism that was prominent in France at the time. Russia invaded the Commonwealth in 1792. The Constitution was in place for less than 19 months; it was annulled by the Grodno Sejm.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: The creation of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland was a milestone in the evolution of Polish statehood and the European identity. It represented the concept of the Polish kingdom (nation) as distinctly separate from the person of the monarch. The introduction of the concept marked the transformation of the Polish government from a patrimonial monarchy (a hereditary monarchy) to a "quasi-constitutional monarchy" ("monarchia stanowa") in which power resided in the nobility, the clergy and (to some extent) the working class, also referred to as an "elective monarchy".


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: A related concept that evolved soon afterward was that of Rzeczpospolita ("Commonwealth"), which was an alternate to the Crown as a name for the Polish state after the Treaty of Lublin in 1569. The Crown of the Kingdom of Poland was also related to other symbols of Poland, such as the capital (Kraków), the Polish coat of arms and the flag of Poland.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: The concept of the Crown also had geographical aspects, particularly related to the indivisibility of the Polish Crown's territory. It can be also seen as a unit of administrative division, the territories under direct administration of the Polish state from the Middle Ages to the late 18th century (currently part of Poland, Ukraine and some border counties of Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Slovakia, and Romania, among others). Parts formed part at the early Kingdom of Poland, then, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until its final collapse in 1795.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: At the same time, the Crown also referred to all lands that the Polish state (not the monarch) could claim to have the right to rule over, including those that were not within Polish borders.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: The term distinguishes those territories federated with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania () from various fiefdom territories (which enjoyed varying degrees of or semi-independence from the King), such as the Duchy of Prussia () and the Duchy of Courland ().


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: Prior to the 1569 Union of Lublin, Crown territories may be understood as those of the Kingdom of Poland proper, inhabited by Poles, or as other areas under the sovereignty of the Polish king (such as Royal Prussia) or the szlachta. With the Union of Lublin, however, most of present-day Ukraine (which had a negligible Polish population and had until then been governed by Lithuania), passed under Polish administration, thus becoming Crown territory.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: During that period, a term for a Pole from the Crown territory was "koroniarz" (plural: "koroniarze") – or Crownlander(s) in English – derived from "Korona" – the Crown.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: Depending on context, the Polish "Crown" may also refer to "The Crown", a term used to distinguish the personal influence and private assets of the Commonwealth's current monarch from government authority and property. It often meant a distinction between persons loyal to the elected king (royalists) and persons loyal to Polish magnates (confederates).


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: After the Union of Lublin (1569) Crown lands were divided into two provinces: Lesser Poland (Polish: Małopolska) and Greater Poland (Polish: Wielkopolska). These were further divided into administrative units known as voivodeships (the Polish names of the voivodships and towns are shown below in parentheses).


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: "Royal Prussia" () was a semi-autonomous province of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1569 to 1772. Royal Prussia included Pomerelia, Chełmno Land (Kulmerland), Malbork Voivodeship (Marienburg), Gdańsk (Danzig), Toruń (Thorn), and Elbląg (Elbing). Polish historian Henryk Wisner writes that Royal Prussia belonged to the Province of Greater Poland.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: The history of Moldavia has long been intertwined with that of Poland. The Polish chronicler Jan Długosz mentioned Moldavians (under the name "Wallachians") as having joined a military expedition in 1342, under King Władysław I, against the Margraviate of Brandenburg. The Polish state was powerful enough to counter the Hungarian Kingdom which was consistently interested in bringing the area that would become Moldavia into its political orbit.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: Ties between Poland and Moldavia expanded after the Polish annexation of Galicia in the aftermath of the Galicia–Volhynia Wars and the founding of the Moldavian state by Bogdan of Cuhea. Bogdan, a Vlach voivode from Maramureș who had fallen out with the Hungarian king, crossed the Carpathian mountains in 1359, took control of Moldavia, and succeeded in transforming it into an independent political entity. Despite being disfavored by the brief union of Angevin Poland and Hungary (the latter was still the country's overlord), Bogdan's successor Lațcu, the Moldavian ruler also likely allied himself with the Poles. Lațcu also accepted conversion to Roman Catholicism around 1370, but his gesture was to remain without lasting consequences.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: Petru I profited from the end of the Hungarian-Polish union and moved the country closer to the Jagiellon realm, becoming a vassal of Władysław II on September 26, 1387. This gesture was to have unexpected consequences: Petru supplied the Polish ruler with funds needed in the war against the Teutonic Knights, and was granted control over Pokuttya until the debt was to be repaid; as this is not recorded to have been carried out, the region became disputed by the two states, until it was lost by Moldavia in the Battle of Obertyn (1531). Prince Petru also expanded his rule southwards to the Danube Delta. His brother Roman I conquered the Hungarian-ruled Cetatea Albă in 1392, giving Moldavia an outlet to the Black Sea, before being toppled from the throne for supporting Fyodor Koriatovych in his conflict with Vytautas the Great of Lithuania. Under Stephen I, growing Polish influence was challenged by Sigismund of Hungary, whose expedition was defeated at Ghindăoani in 1385; however, Stephen disappeared in mysterious circumstances.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: Although Alexander I was brought to the throne in 1400 by the Hungarians (with assistance from Mircea I of Wallachia), this ruler shifted his allegiances towards Poland (notably engaging Moldavian forces on the Polish side in the Battle of Grunwald and the Siege of Marienburg), and placed his own choice of rulers in Wallachia. His reign was one of the most successful in Moldavia's history, but also saw the very first confrontation with the Ottoman Turks at Cetatea Albă in 1420, and later even a conflict with the Poles. A deep crisis was to follow Alexandru's long reign, with his successors battling each other in a succession of wars that divided the country until the murder of Bogdan II and the ascension of Peter III Aaron in 1451. Nevertheless, Moldavia was subject to further Hungarian interventions after that moment, as Matthias Corvinus deposed Aron and backed Alexăndrel to the throne in Suceava. Petru Aron's rule also signified the beginning of Moldavia's Ottoman Empire allegiance, as the ruler agreed to pay tribute to Sultan Mehmed II.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: The principality of Moldavia covered the entire geographic region of Moldavia. In various periods, various other territories were politically connected with the Moldavian principality. This is the case of the province of Pokuttya, the fiefdoms of Cetatea de Baltă and Ciceu (both in Transylvania) or, at a later date, the territories between the Dniester and the Bug rivers.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: As one of the terms of the Treaty of Lubowla, the Hungarian crown exchanged, for a loan of "sixty times the amount of 37,000 Prague groschen" (approximately seven tonnes of pure silver), 16 rich salt-producing towns in the area of Spisz (Zips), as well as a right to incorporate them into Poland until the debt was repaid. The towns affected were: Biała, Lubica, Wierzbów, Spiska Sobota, Poprad, Straże, Spiskie Włochy, Nowa Wieś, Spiska Nowa Wieś, Ruszkinowce, Wielka, Spiskie Podgrodzie, Maciejowce, Twarożne.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: Wenceslaus I sold the Duchy of Siewierz to the Archbishop of Kraków, Zbigniew Cardinal Oleśnicki, for 6,000 silver groats in 1443. After that point it was considered to be associated with the Lesser Poland Province and was the only ecclesiastical duchy in Lesser Poland. The junction of the duchy with the Lesser Poland Province was concluded in 1790 when the Great Sejm formally incorporated the Duchy, as part of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: The Prince-Bishopric of Warmia (,) was a semi independent ecclesiastical state, ruled by the incumbent ordinary of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Warmia, and a protectorate of Kingdom of Poland, later part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth after the Peace of Thorn (1466–1772)


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: After the childless death of the last of the House of Pomerania, Bogislaw XIV in 1637, Lauenburg and Bütow Land again became a "terra" (land, "ziemia") of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. In 1641 it became part of the Pomeranian Voivodeship of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. After the 1657 Treaty of Bydgoszcz, which amended the Treaty of Wehlau, it was granted to the Hohenzollern dynasty of Brandenburg-Prussia in return for her help against Sweden in the Swedish-Polish War under the same favorable conditions the House of Pomerania had enjoyed before. Lauenburg and Bütow Land was officially a Polish fiefdom until the First Partition of Poland in 1772 when King Frederick II of Prussia incorporated the territory into Prussia and the subsequent Treaty of Warsaw in 1773 made the former conditions obsolete.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: The Duchy of Courland and Semigallia is a duchy in the Baltic region that existed from 1562 to 1791 as a vassal state of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1791 it gained full independence, but on March 28, 1795, it was annexed by the Russian Empire in the Third Partition of Poland. The duchy also had colonies in Tobago and Gambia


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: The "Duchy of Prussia" was a duchy in the eastern part of Prussia from 1525 to 1701. In 1525 during the Protestant Reformation, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, Albert of Hohenzollern, secularized the Prussian State of the Teutonic Order, becoming Albert, Duke in Prussia. His duchy, which had its capital in Königsberg (Kaliningrad), was established as a fief of the Crown of Poland, as had been Teutonic Prussia since the Second Peace of Thorn in October 1466. This treaty had ended the War of the Cities or Thirteen Years' War and provided for the Order's cession of its rights over the western half of its territories to the Polish crown, which became the province of Royal Prussia, while the remaining part of the Order's land became a fief of the Kingdom of Poland (1385–1569). In the 17th century King John II Casimir of Poland submitted Frederick William to regain Prussian suzerainty in return for supporting Poland against Sweden. On July 29, 1657, they signed the Treaty of Wehlau in Wehlau (Polish: Welawa; now Znamensk), whereby Frederick William renounced a previous Swedish-Prussian alliance and John Casimir recognised Frederick William's full sovereignty over the Duchy of Prussia. Full sovereignty was a necessary prerequisite for upgrading the Duchy to Kingdom of Prussia in 1701.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: The "Duchy of Livonia" was a territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – and later a joint domain (Condominium) of the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.


title: Crown of the Kingdom of Poland

text: In 1462, during the expansion of the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Tatars, Caffa placed itself under the protection of King Casimir IV of Poland. The proposition of protection was accepted by the Polish king but when the real danger came, help for Caffa never arrived.


title: Pool of Bethesda

text: The Pool of Bethesda is a pool in Jerusalem known from the New Testament account of Jesus miraculously healing a paralysed man, from the fifth chapter of the Gospel of John, where it is described as being near the Sheep Gate, surrounded by five covered colonnades or porticoes. It is now associated with the site of a pool in the current Muslim Quarter of the city, near the gate now called the Lions' Gate or St. Stephen's Gate and the Church of St. Anne, that was excavated in the late 19th century.


title: Pool of Bethesda

text: The name of the pool is said to be derived from the Hebrew and/or Aramaic language. "Beth hesda" (בית חסד/חסדא), means either "house of mercy" or "house of grace". This meaning may have been thought appropriate, since the location was seen as a place of disgrace due to the presence of invalids, and as a place of grace due to the granting of healing.


title: Pool of Bethesda

text: Alternative renderings to the name Βηθεσδά (Bethesda), appearing in manuscripts of the Gospel of John, include Βηθζαθά ("Beth-zatha" = בית חדתא), a derivative of Bezetha, and "Bethsaida" (not to be confused with Bethsaida, a town in Galilee), although the latter is considered to be a metathetical corruption by Biblical scholars.


title: Pool of Bethesda

text: Franz Delitzsch ("Talmudische Studien, X. Bethesda", Zeitschrift für die gesamte lutherische Theologie und Kirche, 1856) suggested that the name comes from a mishnaic Hebrew loanword from Greek, estiv/estava, that appropriately referred to stoa (στοά).


title: Pool of Bethesda

text: According to the Gospel of John, Bethesda was a bathing pool (, "kolumbethra") with five porticoes (translated as "porches" by older English Bible translations).


title: Pool of Bethesda

text: Until the 19th century, there was no clear archaeological evidence for the existence of such a pool. The Pool of Bethesda was sometimes identified by commentators with the modern so-called Fountain of the Virgin, in the Kidron Valley, not far from the Pool of Siloam, or alternatively with the "Birket Isrâ'il", a pool near the mouth of the valley, which runs into the Kidron south of St. Stephen's Gate. Others identified it with the twin pools then called the "Souterrains" (French for "subterranean"), under the Convent of the Sisters of Zion; subsequent archaeological investigation has identified these with the later Struthion Pool.


title: Pool of Bethesda

text: However, as early as the fifth century, there was a Byzantine church in what became the precincts of the Church of St. Anne, called the Church of the Probatike (the Church at the Probatic Pool, or the Pool of the Sheep) or the Church of the Lame Man. This site, as subsequently excavated by archaeologists, seems plausibly to fit the description in John's Gospel.


title: Pool of Bethesda

text: In archaeological digs conducted in the 19th century, Conrad Schick discovered a large tank situated about north-west of St. Anne's Church, which he contended was the Pool of Bethesda. Further archaeological excavation in the area, in 1964, uncovered the remains of the Byzantine and Crusader churches, Hadrian's Temple of Asclepius and Serapis, the small healing pools of an Asclepeion, the second of the two large pools, and the dam between them. It was discovered that the Byzantine church had been built in the very heart of Hadrian's temple and contained the healing pools.


title: Pool of Bethesda

text: The Johannine text (chapter 5) describes the porticoes as being a place in which large numbers of infirm people were waiting, which corresponds well with the site's apparent use in the 1st century AD as an Asclepeion. The biblical narrative continues by describing a Shabbat visit to the site by Jesus, during which he heals a man who has been bedridden for 38 years and could not make his own way into the pool. The healing, and Jesus' instruction to the man to take up his mat, prompts a protest that the religious customs of the Sabbath have been broken.


title: Pool of Bethesda

text: The history of the pool began in the 8th century BC, when a dam was built across the short Beth Zeta Valley, turning it into a reservoir for rain water; a sluice-gate in the dam allowed the height to be controlled, and a rock-cut channel brought a steady stream of water from the reservoir into the city. The reservoir became known as the "Upper Pool" ("בריכה העליונה").


title: Pool of Bethesda

text: Around 200 BC, during the period in which Simon II was the Jewish High Priest, the channel was enclosed, and a second pool was added on the south side of the dam.


title: Pool of Bethesda

text: Although popular legend argues that this pool was used for washing sheep, this is very unlikely due to the pool's use as a water supply, and its extreme depth (13m). There has been some scholarly debate about whether the pool may have been a "mikveh" (Jewish ritual bathing pool).


title: Pool of Bethesda

text: In the 1st century BC, natural caves to the east of the two pools were turned into small baths, as part of an asclepieion; however, the Mishnah implies that at least one of these new pools was sacred to Fortuna, the goddess of fortune, rather than Asclepius, the god of healing. Scholars think it likely that this development was founded by the Roman garrison of the nearby Antonia Fortress, who would also have been able to protect it from attack. Also, the asclepieion's location outside the then city walls would have made its presence tolerable to the Jews, who might otherwise have objected to a non-Jewish religious presence in their holy city.


title: Pool of Bethesda

text: In the mid 1st century AD, Herod Agrippa expanded the city walls, bringing the asclepieion into the city. When Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina, he placed a roadway along the dam, and expanded the asclepieion into a large temple to Asclepius and Serapis.


title: Pool of Bethesda

text: By the fifth century, at least part of the asclepieion had been converted into, or replaced by, a Byzantine church, known as the Church of the Probatike (literally, the Church of the Sheep, the pool being called the Probatic or Sheep Pool) and initially dedicated to the Healing of the Paralytic, though from the sixth century associated with the Virgin Mary (the German pilgrim Theodosius wrote in "De Situ Terrae Sanctae" (c. 530) that "next to the Sheep-pool is the church of my Lady Mary"). This reflects a more general movement which appropriated the healing sites of pagan religion and rededicated them to the Virgin Mary. The theory that this church was built by the Empress Eudocia (present in Jerusalem in 438-39 and 443–460) is uncertain. It seems more likely to be associated with Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem in the mid 5th century. This church was destroyed in 614 by the Persians.


title: Pool of Bethesda

text: After the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, a much smaller church was built among the Byzantine-period ruins on the stone dyke separating the two pools, known as the Church of the Paralytic or the Moustier ('the Monastery'). It was followed by a larger new church erected nearby. This larger church, completed in 1138, was built over the site of a grotto which had (from the fifth or sixth century onwards) been traditionally believed to be the birthplace of Mary, mother of Jesus and was named for Mary's mother, Saint Anne. After the conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187, it was transformed into a Shafi`i fiqh (Islamic law school). Gradually the buildings fell into ruin, becoming a midden (waste dump).


title: Pool of Bethesda

text: In 1856, the area including the Church of St. Anne and the pool site was presented by the Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid I to Napoleon III of France. The French renovated and rededicated the church (under the administration of the White Fathers), at the southeast corner of the pools, leaving the other ruins untouched. There is a tale that the site was originally offered to Queen Victoria as part of the negotiations which led ultimately to the Cyprus Convention of 1878.


title: All About My Mother

text: All About My Mother () is a 1999 comedy-drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, and starring Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Candela Peña, Antonia San Juan, Penélope Cruz and Rosa Maria Sardà.


title: All About My Mother

text: The plot originates in Almodóvar's earlier film "The Flower of My Secret" (1995) which shows student doctors being trained in how to persuade grieving relatives to allow organs to be used for transplant, focusing on the mother of a teenager killed in a road accident. "All About My Mother" deals with complex issues such as AIDS, homosexuality, faith, and existentialism.


title: All About My Mother

text: The film was a commercial and critical success internationally, winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in addition to the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and the BAFTA Awards for Best Film Not in the English Language and Best Direction (Almodóvar). The film also won six Goya Awards including Best Film, Best Director (Almodóvar), Best Actress (Roth).


title: All About My Mother

text: The film centers on Manuela, an Argentine nurse who oversees donor organ transplants in Ramón y Cajal Hospital in Madrid and single mother to Esteban, a teenager who wants to be a writer.


title: All About My Mother

text: On his 17th birthday, Esteban is hit by a car and killed while chasing after actress Huma Rojo for her autograph following a performance of "A Streetcar Named Desire", in which she portrays Blanche DuBois. Manuela has to agree with her colleagues at work that her son's heart be transplanted to a man in A Coruña. After travelling after her son's heart, Manuela quits her job and journeys to Barcelona, where she hopes to find her son's mother, Lola, a transgender woman, that Manuela had kept secret from her son, just as she never told Lola they had a son.


title: All About My Mother

text: In Barcelona, Manuela reunites with her old friend Agrado, a warm and witty transgender sex worker. She also meets and becomes deeply involved with several new friends: Rosa, a young nun who works in a shelter for sex workers who have experienced violence, but is pregnant by Lola and is HIV positive; Huma Rojo, the actress her son had admired; and the drug-addicted Nina Cruz, Huma's co-star and lover. Her life becomes entwined with theirs as she cares for Rosa during her pregnancy and works for Huma as her personal assistant and even acts in the play as an emergency understudy for Nina during one of her drug abuse crises.


title: All About My Mother

text: On her way to the hospital, Rosa asks the taxi to stop at a park where she spots her father's dog, Sapic, and then her own father, who suffers from Alzheimer's; he does not recognize Rosa and asks for her age and height, but Sapic recognizes Rosa. Rosa dies giving birth to her son, and Lola and Manuela finally reunite at Rosa's funeral. Lola (whose dead name is Esteban), who is dying from AIDS, talks about how she always wanted a son, and Manuela tells her about her own Esteban and how he died in an accident. Manuela then adopts Esteban, Rosa's child, and stays with him at Rosa's parents' house. The father does not understand who Manuela is, and Rosa's mother says it is the new cook, who is living there with her son. Rosa's father then asks Manuela her age and height.


title: All About My Mother

text: Manuela introduces Esteban (Rosa's son) to Lola and gives her a picture of their own Esteban. Rosa's mother spots them from the street and then confronts Manuela about letting strangers see the baby. Manuela tells her that Lola is Esteban's mother; Rosa's mother is appalled and says: "That is the monster that killed my daughter?!"


title: All About My Mother

text: Manuela flees back to Madrid with Esteban; she cannot take living at Rosa's house any longer, since the grandmother is afraid that she will contract HIV from the baby. She writes a letter to Huma and Agrado saying that she is leaving and once again is sorry for not saying goodbye, like she did years before. Two years later, Manuela returns with Esteban to an AIDS convention, telling Huma and Agrado, who now run a stage show together, that Esteban had been a miracle by becoming HIV-free. She then says she is returning to stay with Esteban's grandparents. When Manuela asks Huma about Nina, Huma becomes melancholic and leaves. Agrado tells Manuela that Nina returned to her town, got married, and had a fat, ugly baby boy. Huma then rejoins the conversation briefly before exiting the dressing room to go perform.


title: All About My Mother

text: Almodóvar dedicates his film "To all actresses who have played actresses. To all women who act. To men who act and become women. To all the people who want to be mothers. To my mother".


title: All About My Mother

text: Almodóvar recreates the accident scene from John Cassavetes' "Opening Night" (1977) as the epicenter of the dramatic conflict.


title: All About My Mother

text: The soundtrack includes "Gorrión" and "Coral para mi pequeño y lejano pueblo", written by Dino Saluzzi and performed by Saluzzi, Marc Johnson, and José Saluzzi, and "Tajabone", written and performed by Ismaël Lô.


title: All About My Mother

text: The poster for the film was designed by Madrid illustrator Óscar Mariné. This poster was designed to epitomize the very image of beauty, simplicity, and femininity. The poster intentionally emphasizes red, white and blue with black accent strokes and a pop of yellow.


title: All About My Mother

text: The film premiered in Spain on 8 April 1999 and went into general theatrical release on 16 April. It was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, the Auckland Film Festival, the Austin Film Festival, the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival before going into limited release in the United States. It eventually grossed €9,962,047 in Spain ($12,595,016), $8,272,296 in the US and $59,600,000 in foreign markets for a worldwide box office total of $67,872,296.


title: All About My Mother

text: Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" called it Almodóvar's "best film by far", noting he "presents this womanly melodrama with an empathy to recall George Cukor's and an eye-dampening intensity to out-Sirk Douglas Sirk". She added, "It's the crossover moment in the career of a born four-hankie storyteller of ever-increasing stature. Look out, Hollywood, here he comes".


title: All About My Mother

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" observed, "You don't know where to position yourself while you're watching a film like "All About My Mother", and that's part of the appeal: Do you take it seriously, like the characters do, or do you notice the bright colors and flashy art decoration, the cheerful homages to Tennessee Williams and "All About Eve", and see it as a parody? . . . Almodóvar's earlier films sometimes seemed to be manipulating the characters as an exercise. Here the plot does handstands in its eagerness to use coincidence, surprise and melodrama. But the characters have a weight and reality, as if Almodóvar has finally taken pity on them – has seen that although their plights may seem ludicrous, they are real enough to hurt".


title: All About My Mother

text: Bob Graham of the "San Francisco Chronicle" said, "No one else makes movies like this Spanish director" and added, "In other hands, these characters might be candidates for confessions – and brawls – on "The Jerry Springer Show", but here they are handled with utmost sympathy. None of these goings-on is presented as sordid or seedy. The presentation is as bright, glossy and seductive as a fashion magazine . . . The tone of "All About My Mother" has the heart-on-the-sleeve emotions of soap opera, but it is completely sincere and by no means camp".


title: All About My Mother

text: Wesley Morris of the "San Francisco Examiner" called the film "a romantically labyrinthine tribute that piles layers of inter-textual shout-outs to "All About Eve", Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Federico García Lorca and Alfred Hitchcock, and beautifully assesses the nature of facades . . . Almodóvar imbues his Harlequin-novel-meets-Marvel-comic-book melodramas with something more than a wink and a smile, and it is beguiling. His expressionism and his screenwriting have always had fun together, but now there is a kind of faith and spirituality that sexcapades like "Law of Desire" and "Kika" only laughed at... it contains a host of superlative firsts: a handful of the only truly moving scenes he has filmed, the most gorgeous dialogue he has composed, his most dimensional performances of his most dimensional characters and perhaps his most dynamic photography and elaborate production design".


title: All About My Mother

text: Jonathan Holland of "Variety" called the film "emotionally satisfying and brilliantly played" and commented, "The emotional tone is predominantly dark and confrontational . . . But thanks to a sweetly paced and genuinely witty script, pic doesn't become depressing as it focuses on the characters' stoic resilience and good humor".


title: All About My Mother

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 98% based on 91 reviews, with a weighted average rating of 8.10/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Almodovar weaves together a magnificent tapestry of femininity with an affectionate wink to classics of theater and cinema in this poignant story of love, loss and compassion." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 87 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". In 2018 the film was ranked 32nd in BBC's list of The 100 greatest foreign language films. British Film Institute ranked the film at No. 69 on its list of "90 great films of 1990s".


title: All About My Mother

text: A stage adaptation of the film by playwright Samuel Adamson received its world première at the Old Vic in London's West End on 4 September 2007. This production marked the first English language adaptation of any of Almodóvar's works and had his support and approval. Music by the film's composer, Alberto Iglesias, was incorporated into the stage production, with additional music by Max and Ben Ringham. It starred Colin Morgan, Diana Rigg, Lesley Manville, Mark Gatiss, Joanne Froggatt, and Charlotte Randle. It opened to generally good reviews, with some critics stating it improved upon the film.


title: 5000 metres world record progression

text: The official world records in the 5000 metres are held by Joshua Cheptegei with 12:35.36 for men and Letesenbet Gidey with 14:06.62 for women.


title: 5000 metres world record progression

text: The first world record in the men's 5000 m was recognized by World Athletics (formerly called the International Association of Athletics Federations, or IAAF) in 1912. As of January 2014, 35 world records have been ratified by World Athletics in the event.


title: 5000 metres world record progression

text: The first world record in the women's 5000 m was recognized by the IAAF in 1981. As of January 2014, 13 world records have been ratified by the IAAF in the event. Before the event was recognised by the IAAF as an official world record event, the 3000 metres was the most common international women's long-distance track event. However, women did sometimes compete over 5000 m before its addition to the World Championships and Olympic programme in 1995 and 1996, respectively.


title: 5000 metres world record progression

text: Auto times to the hundredth of a second were accepted by the IAAF for events up to and including 10,000m from 1981. Dick Quax's 13:12.9 from 1977 was recorded as 13:12.87 to the hundredth of a second.


title: Merida (Brave)

text: Princess Merida of DunBroch (Scottish Gaelic: Mèrida) is the main protagonist of the 2012 Disney/Pixar film "Brave" (2012). She is voiced by Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald. Merida was added to the Disney Princess line-up as the eleventh member, on May 11, 2013, becoming the first Disney Princess to be created by Pixar. Merida is also the only Scottish member of the Disney Princess line-up and the first to be single.


title: Merida (Brave)

text: The brainchild of original director, Brenda Chapman, Merida is Pixar's first female lead. Overall Merida has received good reports from critics, some saying she is "a breath of fresh air among the princesses, and from a culture Disney has not yet explored. She is a good role model for girls who want to get out there and do it. Merida is certainly no damsel in distress and isn't haughty; she is torn between doing what's expected of her and following her heart. The people of Scotland have to accept Merida."


title: Merida (Brave)

text: Princess Merida is aged 16 daughter of King Fergus and Queen Elinor, who rule their Scottish kingdom. Queen Elinor's traditional expectations that Merida takes a husband and become a proper royal lady come into conflict with the single-minded and impetuous Merida's insistence that she controls her own destiny. Merida has greatly perfected her skill in archery and is one of the most skilled archers in the kingdom. She is also incredibly skilled in spears, sword-fighting and racing across the countryside on Angus, her Clydesdale horse. Despite her outgoing, forceful personality, Merida does have a softness of heart, particularly when it comes to her younger triplet brothers, Harris, Hubert and Hamish. She is pampered but in no way spoiled, and even though she frequently argues with her mother, Merida does love her parents.


title: Merida (Brave)

text: The DunBroch, MacGuffin, Macintosh, and Dingwall clans were once enemies locked in constant war. When Roman soldiers and Northern invaders threatened them from the seas, the four clans joined together under the sword of Fergus to defend their lands. The clans succeeded in protecting their lands from the invaders and formed the Kingdom of DunBroch. The clan leaders of Macintosh, MacGuffin and Dingwall became their feudal lordships of the kingdom; Fergus has crowned their king and Elinor their queen.


title: Merida (Brave)

text: Merida is voiced by actress Kelly Macdonald. Macdonald was hired to replace Reese Witherspoon, the actress originally cast in the role.


title: Merida (Brave)

text: Two of the songs in the movie, "Touch the Sky" and "Into The Open Air", were sung by Julie Fowlis, as Merida's off-screen musical thoughts.