 Now, your top trending stories. FNC News Time, 515. Child deaths in the U.S. were higher than in comparable countries from the years 1999 to 2019. According to the Journal of American Medical Association Pediatrics, the U.S. death rate for kids in that time frame included nearly 20,000 excess deaths a year. That study says more than 56% of those deaths were infants to one-year-olds.