Trying to Explain a Drop in Infant Mortality

[elleng]

The lives and pregnancies of black mothers like Ms. Pendleton, 21, are now the subject of intense study as researchers confront one of the country’s most intractable health problems: the large racial gap in infant deaths, primarily due to a higher incidence among blacks of very premature births.

Here in Dane County, Wis., which includes Madison, the implausible has happened: the rate of infant deaths among blacks plummeted between the 1990s and the current decade, from an average of 19 deaths per thousand births to, in recent years, fewer than 5.

The steep decline, reaching parity with whites, is particularly intriguing, experts say, because obstetrical services for low-income women in the county have not changed that much.

Finding out what went right in Dane County has become an urgent quest — one that might guide similar progress in other cities. In other parts of the state, including Milwaukee, Racine and two other counties, black infant death rates remain among the nation’s highest, surpassing 20 deaths per thousand in some areas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/us/27infant.html?hp

[napi21]

1. I have no idea about WI. but I found it quite unteresting that

little diff. between places where abortion if legal and where it's not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/world/12abortion.html

This an article fro the NYT and they're certainly not a liberal paper!