Mississippi continues to lead the nation in infant deaths, a Sept. 12, 2023, report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control shows.
The infant mortality rate measures infant deaths from birth until a baby’s first birthday. The Magnolia state had 330 infant deaths in 2021 at a rate of 9.39 per 1,000 live births, up from 288 deaths at a rate of 8.12 per 1,000 in 2020. The CDC will not release 2022 data until next year.
One infant died of COVID-19 in 2021, the Mississippi State Department of Health reported. The COVID-19 vaccine was not available for infants in 2021, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said in 2022 that it is safe for children as young as six months old to take.
The latest data comes at a time when experts are expecting an additional 5,000 births a year following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that banned nearly all abortions in the state.
Dr. Daniel Edney said his top two priorities as state health officer are infant and maternal mortality, saying they are Mississippi’s “most egregious public health challenge.”
‘A Complicated Problem’
Mississippi also saw its fetal death rates double among unvaccinated women with COVID-19 in 2021. Fetal death is when a fetus dies in the womb between 20 weeks of pregnancy and birth, also called stillbirth. This is not the same as a miscarriage, which happens before the 20th week of pregnancy.
Infant, fetal and maternal mortality are all interconnected, said Dr. Anita Henderson, a pediatrician at the Pediatric Clinic in Hattiesburg, Miss., and former president of the Mississippi Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“It’s a complicated problem,” she told the Mississippi Free Press on Aug. 2. “It includes access to health care, timing of health care, transportation is a big issue. … So it’s important that we try to make sure those resources are available to them closer to home.”
“All of the things that increase our fetal mortality rate are the same things that increase maternal mortality and infant mortality. It’s a complicated
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