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juliawise comments on Some reservations about Singer's child-in-the-pond argument - Less Wrong
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Historically, societies with high child mortality have also had high birthrates. If the demographic transition model is right, letting the child die is likely to encourage a continued high birthrate, and saving the child may lower the birthrate.
As far as I can tell, decline in birth rates is caused by availability of contraception and some other factors related to industrialization and technological growth, not by a lowered death rate per se, which by itself simply leads to population growth. Wikipedia also suggests that the demographic transition model may not apply to less-developed countries with widespread disease (AIDS, bacterial infections) such as many in Africa.
What we should be looking for is ways to discourage people from having children, at all, in places and situations where we expect that the kids are likely to need such outside "saving" as discussed in the OP.