Infant Mortality Rate

 

Alabama has the highest rate in the United States....7.0%

"Disparities in infant mortality by race continue to persist. The infant mortality rate of black infants remains twice that of white infants. The 2018 black infant mortality rate was 11.0 infant deaths per 1,000 live births compared to the white infant mortality rate of 5.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births."

 

     That is, unfortunately, not news. Large mortality rates and big racial differences have long been a part of Alabama's health statistics, right, even though it has improved significantly in recent years.

     But listen to this!

     A big study of infant mortality found a startling fact:

Mortality rate for Black babies is cut dramatically when they’re delivered by Black doctors.

The Washington Post story reports:

"Strikingly, these effects appear to manifest more strongly in more complicated cases," the researchers wrote, "and when hospitals deliver more Black newborns." They found no similar relationship between White doctors and White births. Nor did they find a difference in maternal death rates when the doctor's race was the same as the patient's. 

The full story is HERE.