Good News in the State of New York -New York City, New York (NewYorkInjuryNews.com) – One huge indicator of a city’s health is the infant mortality rate, and New York is doing great. Reaching record lows since 2001, the city’s infant mortality rate dropped in 2007. New York health officials stated that there were 5.4 infant deaths for every 1,000 live births in 2007, which is a great decrease from 2006 when it was 5.9. In 2007, there were 128,961 babies born, 3,455 more than were born in 2006. In looking at the nation as a whole, the rate of the national infant mortality was at 6.7 deaths for every 1,000 live births in 2006.
Half of these can be contributed to the Asian women, who may have timed their pregnancies to occur during the Year of the Golden Pig, a lucky year in the Chinese lunar calendar. It is common knowledge that infant illness and death is more common in babies whose mothers smoke, use alcohol or drugs, are obese, have diabetes, or have high blood pressure before they become pregnant. New data from the New York City Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System suggest that all of these risk factors are common among NYC women. Researches who studied the data also found that there was a large gap in the infant mortality rates between different racial groups. According to statistics recorded in the health department, the infant mortality rate among black babies was 9.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births in 2007, in comparison to 3.9 deaths for every 1,000 live births among white babies. Infant mortality also varies greatly from one part of the city to another, with low-income areas suffering the highest rates. The highest rate was in the Bronx (7.1 deaths for every 1,000 births). Brooklyn’s rate was on par with the city average, while Queens, Manhattan and Staten Island fared better than the city as a whole.
Other reasons for the decline could be the implementation of programs designed to improve prenatal and infant care, the Nurse-Family Partnership and the Newborn Home Visiting Program, for example. The Nurse-Family Partnership aims to serve more than 2,000 families by July 2008. It is a nurse home-visiting program for low-income, first-time mothers wherein the nurses interact regularly with women from the time they are pregnant through their child’s second birthday. Through the Newborn Home Visiting Program, many Health Department workers assess the safety of the home environment, educate new parents about breastfeeding and safe sleep, and help families’ access medical care and social services. With more education and programs for mothers, our nation will see an even great decline in the infant mortality rate, a positive in the midst of hard times.