Race is the ‘Strongest Predictor’ of Disparities in Birth Outcomes

Annie Gldzhyan, The Loop 21 | July 11, 2011

Enormous stressors and hardships are some reasons to why there is a disparity in birth outcomes.

“Any state you look at, you see the same disparities, and race is the strongest predictor of disparities,”says Dr. Deborah Ehrenthal, of Christiana Care Health System in Delaware. “So we see higher rates of infant mortality, higher rates of preterm delivery.”

  • Black women are about 60 percent more likely than white women to deliver babies early.
  • Black infants are about 230 percent more likely than white infants to die before their first birthdays.

Single parenting is another stress factor for black women who are just trying to make ends meet. Seventy-two percent of black babies are born to unmarried mothers.  (Read more)