Study Looks at Racial, Ethnic Differences in Gestation, Mortality Risk 

An article published in this month's issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology examines trends over the past decade for maternal racial and ethnic differences in neonatal, postneonatal, and infant mortality for early-term births compared with full-term births. The authors also explore the causes of neonatal and postneonatal mortality for early-term and full-term births by maternal race and ethnicity.

The researchers analyzed National Center for Health Statistics' U.S. period-linked birth and infant death data for 1995-2006. The analysis was limited to singleton live births between 37 and 41 completed weeks of gestation.

The authors found that

    ·    Early-term births (at 37 and 38 weeks of gestation) were consistently associated with significantly higher neonatal and infant mortality rates when compared with births at 39 through 41 weeks of gestation over time.

    ·    Infant mortality for births at 37 through 41 completed weeks of gestation has decreased in the past decade across all race and ethnicities.

    ·    The non-Hispanic black infant mortality rate has experienced the smallest decrease at 37 weeks of gestation when compared with improvements for non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics. This is because the neonatal mortality rate for non-Hispanic blacks at 37 weeks of gestation has not sustained any improvement with an increase of 15.8 percent over the past decade. Declines in mortality for infants born at 38 weeks of gestation were also less for non-Hispanic blacks compared with the other groups.

    ·    In 2006, compared with whites, non-Hispanic black infants were 40 percent more likely to die in the neonatal period and 80 percent more likely to die in the postneonatal period if they were born at either early term or full term.

    ·    Accidents, assault, and sudden infant death syndrome were major contributors to the black and white disparity in postneonatal mortality.

"Because 40 weeks of gestation has the lowest infant mortality rates across all race and ethnicities, it should be regarded as the optimal gestational age to use as a control group rather than analyzing infants born over the entire term period," the authors conclude. They add, "although there have been improvements in overall neonatal, postneonatal, and infant mortality rates across the term period in the past decade, the unacceptable disparity in infant mortality remains for non-Hispanic blacks and must be targeted by intervention to decrease the mortality rate for this high-risk group."

An abstract of the article is available here. 

____________________________________________________________________________________

Funding for Pregnancy Prevention Programs Available 

This week the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH) announced the availability of federal Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) dollars to fund evidence-based comprehensive pregnancy prevention programs across Michigan for youth ages 12-19 through the Taking Pride in Prevention (TPIP) program.

The expected release date for this Request for Proposal is June 10. The TPIP grant application is expected to be available from June 10, 2011 to July 22, 2011 and will be placed on the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative (TPPI) website at michigan.gov/teenpregnancy.

____________________________________________________________________________________

March of Dimes Kicks Off 'Worth the Wait' Campaign
This week the March of Dimes unveiled a new public education campaign to raise awareness about the important development that occurs during the last few weeks of pregnancy. The campaign, called "Healthy Babies Are Worth the Wait," encourages women to allow labor to begin on its own if their pregnancy is healthy. It aims to dispel the myth that it's safe to schedule a delivery before 39 weeks of pregnancy without a medical need.

Babies born after 37 weeks of pregnancy are full-term. However, new research has shown that a baby's brain nearly doubles in weight in the last few weeks of pregnancy. Also, important lung and other organ development occur at this time. And, although the overall risk of death is small, it is double for infants born at 37 weeks of pregnancy, when compared to babies born at 40 weeks, for all races and ethnicities.

Only 25 percent of women know a full-term pregnancy should last at least 39 weeks, according to research published in the December 2009 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Information about the new Healthy Babies Are Worth the Wait educational campaign can be found at marchofdimes.com/39weeks.

____________________________________________________________________________________