Yeah that's because a lot of US obgyns don't follow
standard checklist protocols. They don't even study it properly. I think the UK has the best one and I know California uses it. Is it a question of treating the birth as a medical event or as something else? I've read about doctors who have given birth at a hospital and died and the death was preventable.
Other possible factors could be a lack of prenatal care or (and this is separate) births outside of a hospital / medical setting.
I'm not defending the US healthcare system, which is deeply broken, but the particular statistic on infant morality rate can be deceiving. For example:
"...very low-birth-weight infants who are at high risk of dying within the first day tend to be counted as live births. In countries where the health care system does not place the same emphasis on neonatal intensive care, the outcomes of such pregnancies are not likely to be recorded as live births. Hence, it appears that the more resources a country's health care system places on saving high-risk newborns, the more likely its registration will report a higher IMR" [0]
https://www.propublica.org/article/lost-mothers-maternal-hea...