U.S. infant mortality rate on the rise

[teach1st]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4243093/

ATLANTA - U.S. infant mortality has climbed for the first time in more than four decades, mainly because of complications associated with older women putting off motherhood and then having multiple babies via fertility drugs, the government said Wednesday.

At the same time, U.S. life expectancy reached an all-time high of 77.4 years in 2002, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Life expectancy in 2001 was 77.2 years.

The nation’s infant mortality rate climbed from 6.8 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2001 to 7.0 deaths per 1,000 in 2002.

CDC analysts had expected another year of decline — the last time the rate rose was in 1958.

More

[DebJ]

1. hmm...and what impact the increase in poverty levels? Now 12.1% of

Americans, more than one in ten, live in poverty. This means inadequate prenatal care often as well as poor care after the birth.

[seventhson]

2. Nope. Nothing to do with Bush economic policies, more poverty

and the welfare deform act

[teach1st]

3. Youngest Mothers' Infants Have Greatly Elevated Risk Of Dying by Age One

There are risks associated with being an older mother, ie, increased incidence of Downs Syndrome babies. I haven't found anything definite saying that older mothers are associated with increased infant mortality, yet. Anybody know? I did find the following. Is the rate of births to teens declining or increasing?

http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/journals/3505203.html

Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health
Volume 35, Number 1, January/February 2003


DIGESTS


Youngest Mothers' Infants Have Greatly Elevated Risk Of Dying by Age One

Healthy infants who survive their first month of life and who are born to adolescent mothers are at greater risk of dying within their first year than are comparable infants whose mothers are aged 23-29.1 National data for 1996 and 1997 indicate that between 28 and 365 days after birth (i.e., in the postneonatal period), healthy infants died at a rate of 1.4 per 1,000 full-term births. Infants born to women aged 15 or younger had a substantially higher postneonatal mortality rate (3.2 per 1,000) than those born to 23-29-year-olds (0.8 per 1,000). As a result, the odds of postneonatal death, adjusted for a variety of factors that may affect infant health, were significantly increased among the former relative to the latter (odds ratio, 3.0). The risk declined steadily as mother's age increased.

Infant mortality rates are known to be higher than average among babies born to teen-agers, often because of neonatal deaths related to preterm delivery and low birth weight. This is especially true for infants born to very young mothers (those aged 15 and younger). Past research has focused little, however, on mortality among babies born relatively healthy and surviving beyond the first month of life.

[ngGale]

4. The infant mortality rate in this country is also a woman's...

issue. Deeper than older women giving birth. Norplant and federal funding cut's to Medicaid are two other factors. Guess I'm headed to the women's forum. There are a lot of other factors. Sad!

[JPace]

5. This sounds fishy....

with over 45 million Americans without health care
I find it more likely that infants are dying because
people cannot afford prenatal care or proper medical
care for infants and children.

I wonder how many children are taken to the emergency
room only after being ill for some time because Mom &
Dad did not have money for health care.

Our government sucks with special interest getting
rich and babies dying.

[teach1st]

6. Older mothers is a "safe" possible explanation

Older mothers is a "safe" possible explanation. It would be silly to consider other reasons.

http://harrisschool.uchicago.edu/publications/qrr/03spr_briefs1.html

Many studies document that poorer states have higher rates of infant mortality than wealthier states. What is less clear is how economic inequality affects infant mortality. Susan Mayer and Ankur Sarin try to answer this question in their Harris School working paper, “An Assessment of Some Mechanisms Linking Economic Inequality and Infant Mortality.”

They find that states with higher levels of economic inequality have higher levels of neonatal mortality (deaths within the first month after birth), but not post-neonatal mortality. Thus, states with higher levels of inequality have slightly higher levels of overall infant mortality.

[Bridget Burke]

11. "Older mothers" is a useful explanation.

It makes the high infant mortality rate the fault of those selfish "career women" who put off marriage and/or motherhood. Obviously, women should marry as soon as possible while they're prime breeding stock, become supportive wives & mothers, and forget about "careers". (Ignoring the reality that most mothers I work with do so because their families need the income.)

It's too ugly to contemplate the possibility that more babies are dying because their mothers can't afford decent medical care.

[Laughing Mirror]

7. Same thing happened in USSR two decades up to collapse

This should set off alarm bells, not only among the children's health sector.

[0rganism]

8. Just wait until the GOP outlaws abortion, then we'll see some shit

Think infant mortality's a problem now... when all lower-income pregnant women are forced to carry to term, it's going to get cray-zee.

[wickerwoman]

9. So no older women used fertility drugs in the '90s?

<<<Insert your own Clinton's penis joke here.>>>

[Media_Lies_Daily]

10. Cause?: Increased poverty levels and decreased health plans....

...we should be seeing a rise in the death rate at all levels within the next 5-10 years at the present rate.