Racism and Preterm Birth Weight

It's 6:00 a.m. on Monday morning and I am dog tired. Didn't get much rest this weekend due to my weekend bug. I've been sneezing, coughing, and breathing out of one nostril for four days now. This morning I feel a hell of a lot better and decided to find some intellectually stimulating material to read. To say I found just the perfect article is an understatement. On my new favorite blog the Unnecesarean, a post titled "Racism and Low Birth Weight 101". The article is deep . . . it begins by giving stats from the United States Department of Health and Human Services  on the infant mortality rate in this country. After looking at these numbers I am appalled that this is not common knowledge to all, especially for African Americans. It's scary. Here are some of the stats highlighted in the article:

 

United States ranked 28th in the world in infant mortality, in 2006.

In the United States in 2006, 28,509 infants died before reaching their first birthday, an infant mortality rate of 6.7 per 1,000 live births.

African American infants are more than two times more likely to die during the first year of life than white infants.

Infant mortality rate by race per thousand live birth
o Asian – 4.3 
o Blacks – 13.1 
o Native American – 8.3
o White – 5.7 
o Total – 6.7

The United States infant mortality rate was more than 3 times as high as the infant mortality rate in Hong Kong (1.8 per 1,000 live births), the country with the lowest reported rate in 2006.

Yes shocking I know. Please take the time to check out the post. I've included the direct link below. There is even a 20 slide presentation for you to view. Happy Monday!!

For the full article click the link below: