Black infant mortality draws more scrutiny

The Associated Press By The Associated Press The Associated Press
on August 27, 2009 at 6:00 AM, updated October 15, 2009 at 9:59 PM





Lee is the lead spokeswoman for the Office of Minority Health's national campaign "A Healthy Baby Begins With You."

"While we're trying to figure out the exact reasons why black women in America have higher infant-mortality rates than other women, we're trying to encourage women to be as healthy as they can be, as early as possible, " Lee said Wednesday.

In Louisiana, 10 out of 1,000 infants die before their first birthday, a rate that's nearly the worst in the nation, the latest data, compiled for 2006, show.

And while most African-American babies are born healthy, black babies nationwide are more than two times as likely to die before their first birthday as white babies, a disparity that was matched in Louisiana and has widened since Hurricane Katrina, according to data from the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.

Many die as the result of being born prematurely or with a low birth weight, which is much more common for babies born to African-American women, for reasons that aren't completely understood, say researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"No one can say definitively why and that's disturbing to me, " said Lee, a lawyer and the wife of filmmaker Spike Lee. According to the National Institutes of Health, which has long called for further research , the racial disparities have continued despite increases in prenatal care and dramatic declines in overall infant mortality. In recent years, an increasing number of researchers have begun to attribute much of the disparity to a very specific pressure: the chronic stress of being a black woman in the United States.

"People just assume it's about poverty, but it goes across all economic lines, " said Lee, citing research from the CDC and other agencies. "Every single African-American woman, no matter how educated, no matter how well-off, no matter where she lives, has a higher chance of having a low-birth-weight baby."

While it's fairly easy to talk about the importance of healthy diet and exercise, regular medical care, up-to-date vaccinations and prenatal vitamins, conversations about racism's links to the issue are more difficult, said Dr. Joia Crear-Perry, an African-American ob-gyn. "I can't say that I've ever been homeless or hungry. So why would my life be more stressful?"

But Crear-Perry, head of clinical services for the city of New Orleans, knows the topic well. Thirteen years ago, she gave birth to Carlos, who weighed 14.5 ounces, more than 15 weeks premature when he came into the world.

Crear-Perry refers to studies showing African immigrants whose infant-mortality rates were comparable to white women in the United States but whose daughters' infant-mortality rates doubled, to a rate comparable to other African-American women.

So in order to improve birth rates, women need to both examine their health and address things that cause them stress, said Lee, who decided that the campaign needed to reach women earlier, "before they were even thinking of getting pregnant."

This year she's traveled to colleges and universities to recruit students to participate in a "Preconception Peer Educators" program to learn about being healthy and preventing disease and unwanted pregnancies.

Program participants teach other students who then spread the messages throughout their hometowns and neighborhoods.

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Katy Reckdahl can be reached at or 504.826.3396.