Week 8_3/4/16_Introduction

How surprised would you be if I told you that the United States is 49th in the world for their Infant Mortality Rates (IMR) in the world, including developing countries (Hauck et al 457)? Despite today’s technological advances, legions of infants are still succumbing to moderately preventable diseases. The most vulnerable infants are those born to mothers in low-income areas of the United States. A silent epidemic is even happening in our own backyards-St. Louis. Specifically, the population that I will be focusing on is impoverished and also happens to be part of the African American community. Armed with intimate data from St. Louis, I will draw a reasonable correlation between race and infant mortality rates.

Today, modern medicine has advanced to the point of being able to cure most afflictions. However, one affliction that still baffles medical experts is SIDS, also known as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Probably the most disturbing part of SIDS is that it occurs while an infant is sleeping and away from the watchful eye of the parents. This is disturbing because part of SIDS is out of the hands of the parents. SIDS is infamous for striking when parents have done everything right. It is estimated that around 4,000 infant deaths per year in the U.S. can be attributed to SIDS and other sleep related incidents (Hauck et al 457). Despite this substantial number, researchers have been unable to pinpoint an exact cause or a proven way to prevent SIDS. The only thing they can do right now is to offer suggestions that will lower the risks of an infant succumbing to SIDS.

There are several prevention tips out there today, but none have ever proven to be successful nation or world-wide. Some suggestions are to keep infants away from secondhand smoke, keep up with immunizations, seeking medical treatment for infants without delay, breastfeeding, and being aware of wrapping your infant too tightly or overheating them (Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect 437). Most of these sound pretty easy to follow, however, mothers living in poverty are less likely to be educated about these safety measures. In addition, the majority of low-income mothers lack health insurance, which would account for at least one of the factors.

Other factors that have to do with living in an impoverished community can cause problems. In low-income communities, it is a common practice to sleep multiple family members to one bed. For example, using soft bedding, incorrect positioning and bed-sharing have been found to correlate with SIDS (Hauck 458). Some families in impoverished communities have been known to share beds due to their inability to either afford a crib or afford more space for a crib. Thus, multiple family members will sleep in one bed, which inevitably leads to SIDS and sleep-related incidents.

In the specific population I am studying, it has been found that race has a connection with unhealthy infant sleep practices to mothers low on the socioeconomic ladder. As I established before, poverty is an indicator of unhealthy sleep practices. In St. Louis, there is a racial disparity between the two prominent races: Caucasian and African American. For example, African American infants were twice as likely to experience SIDS compared to Caucasians and Hispanics (Hauck et al 458). This data comes from areas in the United States, like St. Louis, where African Americans are the majority population in poverty. Now, that is not the case everywhere, but in certain areas, race is connected to higher IMR.

St. Louis specifically has data that shows a connection between race and IMR. For example, in St. Louis, the white population had healthier birth outcomes than the African American population from 1999-2003 and from 2004-2008 (Peoples & Danawi 41). This data could have had several factors of race that affected the outcome. Historically, there has always been segregation present in St. Louis between the Caucasian and African American population. Over the years, segregation could have had an impact on birth rates and health care. Naturally, the economically privileged population (Caucasian, in St. Louis) would be closer to the best hospitals and have access to better healthcare. Thus, the economically crippled population (African American, in St. Louis), would have less access to good health care and have to travel a further distance to get that health care. In addition, someone coming from a lower socioeconomic status could possibly struggle with getting transportation to the hospital for that health care.

Why should the citizens of St. Louis care about whether or not some races struggle to prevent SIDS in their infants? One local source that has written about this problem is the St. Louis Post Dispatch. They bring up an interesting point about why taxpayers should be worried about infants that have a greater risk for SIDS. Let’s say that the government does step in and is able to deliver more healthy babies coming from lower socioeconomic areas. Despite the healthy delivery, those infants who are risk for SIDS can still suffer from premature birth. Whether it is genetic or an environmental factor, infants are coming early. It would be a reasonable conclusion that living in a harsh environment because you are in poverty could trigger a premature birth. Some medical issues associated with premature birth include difficulty breathing, neurological damage, and and vision loss (St. Louis Post Dispatch 1). When these infants grow up, they will need more medical services from government welfare since they cannot afford private health care. Taxpayers will be paying for those medical services in the future assuming that a fraction of our taxes are being funneled into welfare programs. If there was a decrease in infants being delivered prematurely, St. Louis citizens would be spending a lot less on future medical care, which could be put to use for something else.