Why is the Infant Mortality Rate High in the US?
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Many people were shocked when a 2006 report detailed that the US infant mortality rate ranked second highest in the world, among developed countries. Further, statistics regarding this rate showed disturbing patterns. Infant mortality rate was much higher in the US among minorities, and was connected often to not only deaths for infants but also health risks to mothers. Since the report, there have been a number of theories as to why the US infant mortality rate is so high in the US. These are listed as some of the main reasons.
At the top of the list is inequitable access to health care. Especially among those who are very poor, and among teens who have children, health care was not always equally available. It is not a stretch to imagine that good medical advice and monitoring of a pregnancy is an important contributing factor to babies born at an appropriate birth weight, born full-term, and most importantly born healthy.
It is certainly not the case that poor people only exist in the US. They exist in all industrialized nations. What did seem to bear heavily on these statistics was whether countries had free and easy access to health care. Countries with government health plans tended to have the lowest infant mortality rate.
Women who were of middle class or higher, and who had at least a high school diploma were much more likely to avoid infant mortality. On the whole, the population most at risk for suffering the pangs of losing a child is African-Americans, who are almost two times more likely to have a child either born dead or die within the first 24 hours after birth. While the average infant mortality rate in the US is 5 deaths per 1000 births, for African Americans, this number climbs to nearly ten deaths per 1000 births, a disturbing figure.
Not only education, but the availability of birth attendants is a contributing factor to a higher infant mortality rate in the US. This is a surprising statistic, given that we have more obstetricians and neonatologists per person than most other countries. Clearly it again comes down to access to these doctors, and education regarding pregnancy and health care.
One of the other contributing factors cited in the high US infant mortality rate is availability and education regarding birth control. When this is available, as is the case in most of the countries with lower infant mortality rates, fewer teenagers, one of the most likely groups to have pre-term labor, are less likely to become pregnant. This reduces the total group of teens who might lose a baby born severely premature.
Along with the high infant mortality rate in the US, there is also greater risk to mothers. Deaths during pregnancy climb with infant mortality rate, translating to more risk to moms. This is especially the case when a mother does not deliver a child with a birth attendant.
What can be gleaned from studies like the one done in 2006 is that there are quite clear solutions to the problem. The US can arrest the issue by learning from other nations. Such a choice would ensure better care for American mothers and children.
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As a health care worker I have watched doctors contribute to the infant mortality rate. They use every opportunity they can to interfere with normal labor and birth, causing their own negative statistics. Having participated in over 2,000 deliveries myself,
I learned that if you leave the natural process of birth alone it will usually progress normally with little or no incident, but introduce drugs such as an epidural, labor augmentation or cesarean, birth becomes a medical nightmare of intervention upon intervention. I think the motivation is money as each of these interventions have a CPT code and cost associated with them.
In America roughly 98 percent of births take place in hospitals and we have one of the worst infant mortality rates of any industrialized nation.
So who do you think is responsible for the horrendous stats? - anon47006
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I just read the constitution again. There is no mention of a fundamental right to health care paid for by your neighbors. Besides, it is absolutely nonesense that the poor don't get health care. Medicaid is available to *all* poor children. If you are suggesting the poor are doing worse in this country, maybe that's a sign that Medicaid (a goverment program) is the problem. - anon44912
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yet if prenatal care matters and it clearly does, no doctor has to provide it, unless it is on an emergency basis, and the pregnant woman in an emergency situation still gets a bill, even if she gets care, that she cannot pay, leaving some women to choose home birth without any qualified medical assistance. But the issue of poor prenatal care especially among the poor, where problems are evaluated throughout a pregnancy is crucial, and that need is not being met. I think you are opposed to universal health care, and yet, it should be noted that infant mortality rates in many countries that have varying forms of government care are much lower than US statistics. I would be on the side of any policies that would view health care as a fundamental right that helps to pursue all other rights the constitution grants. - anon43882
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This article reads like a propaganda piece for universal health care. There are a number of other very important factors that contribute to higher infant mortality rates in the U.S. First, the U.S. is far more successful at delivering premature babies - other "industrialized countries" don't deliver nearly as many as we do per capita nor do they spend anywhere close to what we do on such infants. They just let them die. Second, the U.S. is much farther ahead in terms of various fertility enhancing techniques, resulting in far more preemie births, driving up the number of premature multiple births which, due to their risk, have a much higher death rate. The stats don't take into account miscarriages, which is how many of these other countries count the deaths that we would call infant deaths because we get more of them out of the womb alive, but more of them die. Finally, it's completely inaccurate to say we don't "guarantee health care" in the U.S. First, all poor people are eligible for Medicaid and second, by law (passed in 1969) no health care provider can deny lifesaving care to anyone based on their inability to pay. I can't believe this drivel is being peddled on a so-called "expert" site. Stop flacking for the Democrats, please and just give us the facts. - anon41646
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Written by
Tricia Ellis-Christensen
Last Modified: 30 September 2009
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