NORTH CAROLINA – September is National Infant Mortality Awareness Month.

What You Need To Know

  • North Carolina infant mortality rate is one of the highest in the country

  • Black infants have 2.3 times the infant mortality rate as white infants

  • Factors can include stress and implicit bias

Research from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Minority Health show Black infants have 2.3 times the infant mortality rate as white infants.

Health officials say those factors can include stress, implicit bias, and premature babies.
　
"What surprises us, and disturbs us in some ways, is that class and economic stability don’t impact that," says Pam Oliver, OBGYN, EVP and president of Novant Health Medical Group. "So, as an educated African American woman, my risk of having a premature baby is as high or higher than a white woman with a high school diploma."
　
One mother says racial disparities impacted her son's life moments before he was born.

"I think physicians need to be aware of the trauma that comes with giving birth as a person of color," Kenya Pridgen says. "To understand that there are news articles, so many things in our community trying to teach us to be prepared to advocate for ourselves because we are dying faster and our babies are dying more often."

In North Carolina the infant mortality rate is one of the highest in the country.