With almost seven infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2004, the U.S. ranked 29th worldwide in infant mortality, according to a report released on Wednesday.

As written in the report, the United States ranked 12th lowest in the world in 1990. However, by 2004, the latest year for which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released such comparisons, the ranking had dropped to 29th lowest.

The statistics are included in a new report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.

Of course, everybody wonders which are the reasons of this worrying situation. There are voices claiming that obesity and increased drug use are responsible for the actual infant mortality rate, whereas other people believe the U.S. decentralized health care system should be blamed. Also, a number of scientists say preterm births and Caesarean deliveries are the culprit.

The findings of the report also showed that in 2005, the infant death rate among non-Hispanic African-American women was 2.4 times higher than the rate among non-Hispanic white women – more exactly, 13.63 per 1,000, compared to 5.76 per 1,000. The percentage of infant deaths was also higher among Puerto Rican women - 8.30 per 1,000 - and American Indian women - 8.06 per 1,000.

As stated by Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, a non-profit research group devoted entirely to health policy, “infant mortality and our comparison with the rest of the world continue to be an embarrassment to the United States.”