Surviving the First Day: Infant Mortality

Posted by on May 20, 2013

City ranks low on infant mortality

Philadelphia ranks fifth from the bottom of the more than 200 most populous counties nationwide on a key measure of infant mortality, Save the Children has reported.

Camden County was rated 20th and Delaware County 22nd in the analysis of infant deaths in the first 24 hours of life for 2007 through 2009.  Pennsylvania ranked sixth in the nation.

One million babies a year die within 24 hours of birth, according to Save the Children, nearly all of them in the developing world.

“One thing that women in Philadelphia have in common with women in the developing world is that the poorer they are, the greater chance they have of losing a baby on the first day of life,” Carolyn Miles, Save the Children’s president and chief executive officer, told the Philadelphia Inquirer.  African American women in particular are two to three times more likely to give birth early.

Research increasingly suggests that race and poverty are independently related to preterm birth, with poor African American women at greater risk than poor white women.

Philadelphia has the highest poverty rate and the highest percentage of African American residents of the nation’s 10 biggest cities.

http://www.savethechildren.org/site/c.8rKLIXMGIpI4E/b.8585863/k.9F31/State_of_the_Worlds_Mothers.htm