as expected low birth weight is associated with higher infant mortality as is being part of a multiple delivery mortality rates also vary with birth order infant mortality is highest for children of birth order four or higher and is lowest for children of birth order two or three while this is in line with other studies on infant mortality it contrasts with the findings of an earlier study on jordan by shakhatreh abbas and issa analysing mortality statistics for the period these authors find that infant mortality rates were lowest for firstborn children