I was confused because our perinatal mortality was bad and is now worse but this is specifically about infants, so the answer is real fucking simple
People don't have the time or money (and all too fucking often, a single crumb of trust that the medical industry has the best interests of their child at heart) to take their kids to the doctor. Or even better, when they see the doctor, it's not a doctor, it's someone with < 1% of the studied, standardized training regimen determined to kill the fewest patients from egregious malpractice. So parents cross their fingers and pray, because they don't really have a choice. I see the same thing with adults every day.
Our country turned infrastructure, housing, healthcare, education, relationships, communication, the natural environment into a speculative investment, the more profit made, the people go without. It will only continue to get worse, the world is already burning but the wheel cannot turn backwards.