Children born in Alto lack the traditional protection of breastfeeding, subsistence gardens, stable marriages, and multiple adult caregivers. In these shantytowns that spring up around urban centers marriages are "brittle" and single parenting the norm. Woman are forced to seek employment, working as domestics or in the fields of the sugar plantation for as little as a dollar a day, and cannot bring their babies with them, consequently older children who are not in school will sometimes serve as babysitters, however children who are not in school are also expected to find work, thus babies are simply "left at home alone, the door securely fastened." Many babies die alone and unattended. Another factor that exacerbates the situation is religious doctrine. The Catholic Church's official position against birth control, abortion, and sterilization only adds to the number of children born into this untenable situation. Scheper-Hughes notes...

The prevailing environment, the disease, poverty, depravation, sexism, chronic hunger, and economic exploitation combine to make just managing life a trial of the spirit, let alone coping with the loss of a child. I feel the real tragedy of this situation is not that mothers do not grieve their losses, but that the maternal acceptance of the death of a child has become so casual.
References

Scheper-Hughes, N. (1989, October). Death without weeping. Natural History, Vol. 98,…