Tackling Infant Mortality Rates Among Blacks

Nationally, black babies are more than twice as likely as white babies to die before the age of 1. Here in Pittsburgh, the rate is five times.

The infant mortality rate in the United States has long been near the bottom of the world’s industrialized countries. The nation’s current mark — 6.7 deaths per 1,000 live births — places it 46th in the world, according to a ranking by the Central Intelligence Agency.

African-Americans fare far worse: Their rate of 13.3 deaths per 1,000 is almost double the national average and higher than Sri Lanka’s.

Recent studies have shown that poverty, education, access to prenatal care, smoking and even low birth weight do not alone explain the racial gap in infant mortality, and that even black women with graduate degrees are more likely to lose a child in its first year than are white women who did not finish high school. Research is now focusing on stress as a factor and whether black women have shorter birth canals.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/us/efforts-to-combat-high-infant-mortality-rate-among-blacks.html?_r=0

Pregnant women who have stressful experiences in the year before giving birth are more likely to deliver stillborn babies, a new study reports.

The study, by the National Institutes of Health, asked 2,000 women in five states about specific events, like losing a job, moving or losing a close friend or relative. Stillbirth risk increased with each event. Non-Hispanic black women were most affected. Experiences most correlated with stillbirth included being in a fight, going to jail and hearing a partner express opposition to the pregnancy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/health/link-is-found-between-stressfull-events-and-stillbirths.html?ref=health