Black Infant Mortality Gap

by Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger

12 Jul 2008 11:16 AM

If you are a newborn black infant, your chances of survival to toddler-hood is less than if you are a newborn white infant. This is according to a study that was published in the January 2008 issue of the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

According to the research, which was conducted at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, rates for all infant deaths increased during the time frame of the study, not matter whether the babies where black or white, but the increase was greatest for babies who were black.

The study looked an infant mortality rates for the years from 1995 to 2000. For white babies, the rate of death was 4.9 deaths for every 1,000 infants. For black babies, the rate of death was 11.4 deaths for every 1,000 births. This is more than twice as many babies. During this time, there were 3,303 "extra" black infant deaths. The rate, in terms of percentages, increased from 0.4 percent to 0.6 percent for white babies and from 1.4 percent to 1.9 percent for black babies.

What does this all mean? The lead researcher, Dr. Martha Slay Wingate believes that prenatal care may play a role since there was a high percentage of low birth-weight babies in the study who were black.

I'm always a little bit leery of studies like this because they don't always give the whole picture. Was there a particular region that was studied, such a poor neighborhood where anyone black or white would find attaining prenatal care difficult? Were the results skewed by a high number of teen or advanced maternal age pregnancies and were all other possibly contributing factors eliminated? There is no mention of mixed race babies. Hopefully, the results will encourage outreach from community leaders to target the disparity and increase the viability of all infants.

What do you think?

Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. Starting June 1st, don't miss her articles in the Baby Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.

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Learn more about Mary Ann Romans

Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat.

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