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NEWS & LETTERS, June -July 2007Infant mortality rises in deep SouthThe infant mortality rate in Mississippi and neighboring states of the deep South reversed in recent years and is now climbing. The infant mortality rate--deaths by one year of age per thousand live births--is a good barometer of the overall health of a population. The infant mortality rate in Mississippi fell to 9.7 by 2004 but in 2005 rose sharply to 11.4. This rate hike means that 65 more babies died in 2005 than in the year before, for a total of 481 deaths. The rate in the deep South stands well above the national level. These states have large Black populations and expanses of entrenched poverty. But the racial disparity is evident even at the national level which stood at 14.0 for Black babies but only 5.7 for whites in 2003, the last year these figures were compiled nationally. There are multiple and overlapping reasons for this disturbing increase in infant mortality, including: premature and low-weight births; congenital defects; and, especially among poor, Black adolescent mothers, deaths from accidents and disease. Obesity in the mothers makes diagnostic tests more difficult and can be the forerunner of diabetes and hypertension which can, in turn, lead to malnutrition in the fetus. Cutbacks in social programs contribute to pregnant women not receiving regular prenatal care. In recent years, poverty in Mississippi has worsened. However, welfare payments have declined under the leadership of a fiscally conservative governor who also reduced funding for outreach to pregnant women. A director of the Children’s Defense Fund highlighted the connection between funding for the poor and the longevity of their babies: "When you see drops in the welfare rolls, when you see drops in Medicaid and children’s (health) insurance...unborn children suffer." Transportation to clinics and to Medicaid enrollment centers is also a major issue. We thus see a complex interweaving of biological and socio/political factors at work in influencing the survival of infants. Dr. H. Jack Geiger, who played a major role in starting a community health center in the Mississippi Delta in the 1960s, commented: "No health services can overcome the effects of social policies that devastate the lives of the poor....We should be enraged, and ashamed,that these preventable excess deaths continue, and increase, among us." --Eli Messinger |
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