What's an infant?

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Profile	Posted by	Options	Post Date
Member Since: August 2003 Posts: 1,669 Send Message	Twinkle	Report	27 Jul 2004 12:20
	Sounds like a daft question, but this appears on several burial records. I have others saying 'one week' or 'one month'. How old would an infant be? Thanks.
Member Since: February 2003 Posts: 6,808 Send Message	Christine2	Report	27 Jul 2004 12:25
	As some have stated one week etc I wonder if infant was used for deaths at birth? Chrissie
Member Since: May 2003 Posts: 0 Send Message	Pat	Report	27 Jul 2004 12:28
Member Since: May 2003 Posts: 0 Send Message	Kate I always thought in this context an infant was under a year old, and records vary some stating the age in months others not bothering and just opting for the word infant instead. But maybe I am totally wrong.
Member Since: January 0001 Posts: 0 Send Message	Unknown	Report	27 Jul 2004 12:40
Member Since: January 0001 Posts: 0 Send Message	I work in the infant part of a primary school, ages 4-7. According to my dictionary, infant CAN mean anyone under the age of majority (18 nowadays, 21 earlier), but generally means under 7. Helen
Member Since: August 2003 Posts: 1,669 Send Message	Twinkle	Report	27 Jul 2004 15:59
	Thanks everyone for your replies. This is the same problem I had in Geography at school - did infant mortality statistics refer to deaths under 1, deaths under 5 etc etc? It's nice to know terms are still so vague after 200 years :)