Posted on 11/03/2009 2:20:45 PM PST by neverdem
High rates of premature birth are the main reason the United States has higher infant mortality than do many other rich countries, government researchers reported Tuesday in their first detailed analysis of a longstanding problem.
In Sweden, for instance, 6.3 percent of births were premature, compared with 12.4 percent in the United States in 2005, the latest year for which international rankings are available. Infant mortality also...
--snip--
Dr. Fleischman said the smallest, earliest and most fragile babies were often born to poor and minority women who lacked health care and social support. The highest rates of infant mortality occur in non-Hispanic black, American Indian, Alaska Native and Puerto Rican women. But other minority groups have some of the lowest infant mortality rates in the United States: Asian and Pacific Islanders, Central and South Americans, Mexicans and Cubans...
--snip--
“I don’t think there are doctors doing preterm Caesarean sections or inductions without some indications, but there sort of has been this shift in the culture,” Dr. MacDorman said. “Fifteen or 20 years ago, if a woman had high blood pressure or diabetes, she would be put in the hospital, and they would try to wait it out. It was called expectant management.
“Now I think there’s more of a tendency to take the baby out early if there’s any question at all.”
These births — called “late preterm,” which occur after 34 to 37 weeks of pregnancy, instead of the normal 38 to 42 weeks — are the fastest growing subgroup of premature births. A late preterm baby’s risk of dying is about three times that of a full-term infant. But late preterm babies are still far more likely to survive than very premature ones, and the very early babies account for much of the death rate, Dr. Fleischman said...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Scroll down to find the text. I haven't read it yet.
Also, those premature births in foreign countries aren’t even counted as births for their infant mortality calculations. They simply count them as miscarriages. Sort of like a sacrifice fly or sacrifice bunt not counting as an at-bat when you calculate your batting average.
This doesn’t make sense since American Indians have free medical care Plus any women who gets pregnant but is broke gets free care through Medicaid and / or CHIPS.
somehow this will be blames on the Gov’t who will then go create a new gov’t dept.
When is it the responsibility of the woman?
The US calls a lot of things “Infant Death” than most other countries call miscarriage. The relatively high rates of infant mortality in the United States is entirely due to this difference in terminology. All of the hand-wringing over this statistic is useless, because it is really a difference in terminology, and nothing more.
But it fits the template, so nobody looks any further.
Bump for later reference
LIES. The poorest women have access to health care -— it is friggin called Medicaid. These women are not interested in the health of their babies they are interested in drugs and sex and alcohol and a free ride
As Condi Rice once said in a vastly underreported and under-appreciated speech, "We have different values than Europe has."
Also, US hospitals are far more aggressive in attempting to save the lives in premature infants.
Babies born under 2 pounds are no longer a rarity, and those who do not make it are chalked into the “infant mortality” column, whereas the same child in another country would have been “stillborn.”
I had a premie (29 weeks gestation, 1 lb 11 oz, small for gestational age) and I am neither poor nor am I minority. I guess I just don't fit their stereotype.
Is there a source for your comment? I would like to throw it at a few friends of mine.
Thanks for pointing it out!
Meaningless blather. Every country calculates it differently, many do not count premature babies as babies, some count babies as alive if they live a certain number of hours after birth, somtimes its days, I think Cuba starts at 2 or 3 days.
This "infant mortality rate" is useless and a sham. Only the US actually attempts to count this stuff accurately.
I think Cuba starts counting at 2 or 3 days.
“LIES. The poorest women have access to health care -— it is friggin called Medicaid. These women are not interested in the health of their babies they are interested in drugs and sex and alcohol and a free ride.”
As an OB/GYN nurse, I totally agree with you. They have (in AZ) Emergency AHCCCS, funding from the tobacco tax, Indian Health Services,etc. There has to be accountability on the mom’s part. So many are noncompliant and refuse to take responsibility for themselves or their unborn child.
Table 2 in the report cited shows clearly that U.S. is #3 in the world (behind Norway and Sweden) in infant mortality for babies born at 22-23 weeks and 24-27 weeks, #4 (behind Norway Sweden and Austria) for babies born between 28-31 weeks, and #3 (behind Austria and Norway) for babies born between 32-36 weeks http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db23.htm
My guess is that if you separated out White and Black infants (which in this country essentially means controlling for socioeconomic status), our rankings might well jump to #1 in every category.
Medical care matters way more for these preemies than for births in general (after all, low risk births can be safely delivered at home). That said, Scandinavian and Austrian women are “heartier stock” than the average American women, so at least some of the apparent survival advantage for these countries may lie in this physiological difference (which obviously has nothing to do with the quality of medical care in any of these countries and much more to do with lifestyle/exercise etc.).
I wonder what % are crack babies/meth babies. That does wonders for the unborn kids.
The Doctor Is In: Infant Mortality Comparisons a Statistical Miscarriage
If you want to make their pointy little heads explode, show them Ann Coulter's column on the subject...
There are a whole lot of “missing” girls in China that would give them an infant mortality rate of about 10% if they were counted. But they don’t matter, so they don’t get counted.
Sadly, a first cousin born 2 weeks younger and 6 years earlier in Sweden did not make it. I wonder if he was counted as an infant mortality or merely a miscarriage.
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