At the beginning of the 20th century, the infant mortality rate in the United States was approximately 100 deaths per 1,000 live births.  In 1915, the first year for which data were collected from the U.S. Birth Registry, one out of every ten babies died before their first birthday.  Despite fluctuations during the early part of the century, the infant mortality rate dropped steadily with a nearly fourteen-fold decrease since 1915.   By the 1990s, fewer than 10 out of every 1,000 infants died during their first year of life, with the rate being 7 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1999.