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Mommy Talk
You can help women have healthy babies
Posted by:
Janine Anderson on
October 14, 2009 at
3:04PM CST
For the past few years I’ve written about infant mortality. Racine’s rate is dismal. The city’s overall rate is worse than the state’s. There’s no good reason for that. When you break the numbers down by race, it breaks my heart. Black babies born in Racine are far, far more likely to die than white babies. Prematurity and low birth weight are the leading causes of death. Whenever I write a story about this, I’m amazed at the comments people make. Recently, people questioned why the Wisconsin Partnership Program would target money toward programs aimed at reducing the black infant mortality rate. Well, it’s because black babies die at a disproportionate rate. In 2007, the last year for which statistics are available, Racine’s black infant mortality rate was 23.47 deaths per 1,000 live births. The corresponding white rate was 2.43 deaths per 1,000 live births. Reducing the black infant mortality rate doesn’t mean raising the rate for anyone else. It simply means finding ways to make it so fewer of the black babies born here die before their first birthdays. Don’t let this turn into a community-wide blame game. Infant mortality doesn’t have just one cause. It’s about prenatal care, medical care between pregnancies, economic stability, social stability, family stability, safe sleeping, pediatric care, breastfeeding, parental stress levels and community support. Programs to reduce black infant mortality rates — whether they are support groups that advocate breastfeeding, home visitation programs for women who have trouble getting medical care, overall improvements in the quality of care at local medical facilities, mentoring programs for pregnant women — won’t just improve the lives of black women and black babies. A culture that supports babies and pregnant women will help every baby and every pregnant woman. The bad news: There is no one thing that will keep babies in Racine from dying. Improving the health of babies in the city will take efforts on many fronts. The good news: There is no one thing that will keep babies in Racine from dying. That means there’s something each and every one of us can do to help. Open a door for a pregnant woman, or one with a small child. It could help her feel wanted in this community. Offer help — a meal, babysitting, a phone call — to anyone you know with a young baby. It could help reduce family stress. Make funny faces at the baby fussing in the grocery store check-out line. There’s nothing that mom can do Support breastfeeding. Make women who choose to nurse their babies feel comfortable about doing so; a 2004 study by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences found a 20 percent lower risk of dying before the first birthday for babies who were breastfed — whether the baby was black or white.
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