 Friday, March 15, 2024
Why do Black babies experience
higher rates of infant mortality?
 Data from the city’s recently released health equity data dashboard, www.louhealthdata.com, shows that Black babies experience higher rates of infant mortality, low birth weight and preterm birth than white or Hispanic babies.
What contributes to these higher rates of infant mortality, low birth weight and preterm births for Black babies?
- Lacking access to easily available quality healthcare and health insurance are root causes of these outcomes. Pregnant people are more likely to deliver healthy, full-term babies when they can go to preventative and prenatal health visits with a healthcare provider. Barriers to getting health care might include difficulty navigating the process of finding a provider because of financial and insurance coverage barriers, lack of maternal health services in a specific geographical area, language and cultural barriers, overbooked providers and racial discrimination.
- Implicit bias related to social factors such as racism, education level and income contribute to birthing patients’ experiences in health care delivery settings and affect their health outcomes. The Ready 4 K Alliance’s qualitative assessment on prenatal care access in Louisville detailed resident experiences with medical racism – instances where it appears, or parents perceived, that their race negatively affected their care. Black birthing parents who participated in the study expressed that their medical concerns were often dismissed, specifically patient requests for pain treatment. This experience is often echoed by many Black birthing parents in the U.S. due to provider negligence associated with negative stereotypes of Black individuals’ experience of pain and pain tolerance.
Healthy Start helps families have healthy pregnancies, reduces infant mortality
Healthy Start is a federally funded program operated by the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness. It helps families living in Smoketown, Old Louisville, Portland, Russell, Shawnee, Park DuValle, Park Hill, Parkland, Algonquin and nearby neighborhoods – neighborhoods with the highest infant mortality rates -- have healthy, full-term pregnancies and deliver healthy infants that live to celebrate their first birthdays and beyond.
Healthy Start provides an array of innovative programming and support including:
- A licensed clinical social worker to address client’s mental health issues at all phases prenatally and postpartum.
- What To Expect When Expecting classes with a labor and delivery nurse.
- Healthy nutrition – all eligible Healthy Start participants are also enrolled in the Women Infants and Children Supplemental Nutrition Program, (WIC). Parents are also provided breastfeeding support through peer counselors.
- Free Kroger grocery delivery for Healthy Start families.
- Warm handoffs for housing and utility assistance to prevent evictions.
- Bus passes to families to lessen burden of transportation issues.
- Fatherhood program where fathers can speak confidentially about issues and concerns while providing support for one another.
Successes of the Healthy Start program include:
- Over 95% of participants have health insurance
- Over 80% have a usual source of medical care
- 99% of participants are screened for depression and inter-partner violence
- Over 75% of our participants report dual-partner involvement
- 80% of our participants report breastfeeding their child
If you know of a family who is expecting a baby and lives in ZIP codes 40203, 40208, 40210, 40211 and 40212 encourage them to reach out to the Healthy Start program by calling 502-574-6661.
Learn more about who we are and what we do
Free HIV testing is available
 Our Harm Reduction Outreach Services team is offering free HIV testing from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday, March 15 at the Louisville Recovery Community Connection, 1700 S. Fifth St. No appointment is required.
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