Alabama’s infant death rate climbed to 10 per 1,000 live births in 2007, the highest level since 1998. According to the state Health Department, there were 64,180 live births in the state and 641 infant deaths. The figures include infants who die up to one year after their birth.
Alabama’s infant death rate is among the highest in the nation. Only Mississippi and Louisiana had higher rates in 2005, the most recent year for interstate comparisons. While Alabama’s rate was 9.53 infant deaths per 1,000 live births that year, the national rate was 6.9. Reducing Alabama’s 2007 rate to this national average would require eliminating about 200 infant deaths annually.
Finding the causes of infant deaths and developing intervention strategies to reduce them are high priorities for state health officials. Their studies have looked at 15 years of data and found a number of related factors. In analyzing each factor, variations in all of the others are controlled so that the comparisons are “apples to apples.”
Low birth weight is a key issue. Ten percent of Alabama babies are considered low-weight at birth, weighing less than 5 pounds, 8 ounces, and their 2007 death rate per 1,000 live births was 63.5, compared with 3.2 for normal-weight babies. When all other factors are controlled, studies show the low-weight babies are about 16 times more likely to die within the first year.
The mother’s weight gain also is significant. When she gains too little, the infant death rate is 1.5 times higher than for mothers with normal weight gain during pregnancy.
The risk of infant death also is increased for births to teenagers (25 percent higher risk than for adult mothers), births to black mothers (22 percent higher risk than for mothers of other races), multiple births (22 percent higher risk than for babies born singly), births to smoking mothers (10 percent higher risk than for nonsmoking mothers) and births to mothers with less than a high school education (8 percent higher risk than for graduates). Adequacy of prenatal care and insurance coverage also are factors of concern.
Presentations based on these studies can be seen on the Alabama Center for Health Statistics Web site (www.adph.org/healthstats).
EDITOR’S NOTE — Jim Williams is executive director for the nonprofit, nonpartisan Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama.
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