Alabama health leaders have announced the state’s infant mortality rate has reached a historic low. This comes as the national infant mortality rate has risen for the first time in two decades. Infant mortality rate is the number of deaths per 1,000 infant births in the state.
In a press release, the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) said that in 2022, Alabama had “6.7 deaths per 1,000 live births, a decrease from the 7.6 rate in 2021.” This is the lowest the infant mortality rate has been in the state.
According to the Alabama Public Health Department’s Perinatal Program website, Alabama had an infant mortality rate of 7.0 infant deaths per 1,000 births in 2018. This was lower than 2017 by 0.4; however, the rate in the Yellowhammer State at this time was still higher than the national average.
Carolyn Miller, the State Perinatal Division Director at ADPH, said that while Alabama is usually at the forefront of bad health news, the state has seen good news regarding infant mortality rates.
“I want to point out that while we were going down in Alabama, the US national rate went up for the first time in 20 years. I think that's significant,” Miller said. “We usually hear bad news about health in Alabama, but we are improving. I think part of the success of Alabama is an initiative[s] that we have put in place here at Public Health.”
The initiatives Miller mentioned include ADPH providing cribs for families who do not have a safe place for their newborn to sleep and health screenings for women in nine counties across the state. Miller also said knowing safe sleep practices is vital to keeping babies safe.
“We have been providing lots of education on safe sleep practices, which means placing the baby on their back alone in the crib. That means no blankets, no toys, nothing but the baby. Also, avoiding co-sleeping with families,” she explained. “Sometimes we lay down on the bed, we’ll lay down on a couch, with a baby on our chest. That can actually cause sleep-related deaths as well. So, we've done a lot of education not only with the families, but with providers to help them emphasize what is the safest way for your baby to sleep,” Miller continued.
She also said the ADPH provided 725 cribs across the state in 2023 to families who need them. This is done through Alabama Cribs for Kids. Miller said the cribs provided will make a significant difference in the sleep related deaths across the Yellowhammer State.
Another initiative the ADPH has begun is screening in different counties across Alabama. Miller said screenings through the Well Woman Alabama Program help pregnant people who live in the state’s rural areas or those not close to a delivery center.
“Women sometimes are having to drive an hour to deliver. Most of our counties do not have delivering hospitals and many of our counties do not have delivering health care providers,” Miller explained. “One thing that we've done to try to help women have greater access to care, particularly before they get pregnant, is in our Well Woman Program,” she continued. “We're screening for diabetes, hypertension and looking at their BMI for obesity. Any woman can come in and as young as 15 to be screened.”
These screenings come after three delivery centers in the state closed their doors, leaving many pregnant people with nowhere to go to deliver their babies.
Well Woman is currently available in the following Alabama counties: Barbour, Butler, Dallas, Henry, Macon, Marengo, Montgomery, Russell, and Wilcox. To enroll, women must be between the ages of 15-55 and reside in a county providing services in the Well Woman Program.
While the infant mortality rate for the state has decreased, Miller said racial discrimination in Alabama continues to be a problem in the medical field.
“We still are battling with racial disparities. Our white infant deaths went down significantly this year, but the black infant deaths went up a little bit,” she said.
According to a press release from ADPH, “Black mothers continue to have the highest infant mortality rate in the state. In 2022, the rate increased to 12.4 from the 2021 rate of 12.1. The infant mortality rate for white mothers was 4.3, a decrease from 5.8 in 2021.” Miller said this is something the department is working to address and help find solutions for.
“That's one thing that we are still really focusing on,” she explained. “To see if we can improve the health of our black infants in our state, and part of that is targeting where that [is] happening. That tends to be in counties with lower income with more minorities, and they have less of access to care [and] less access to healthy foods and other resources. We're really trying to work in decreasing that racial disparity in our infant mortality,” Miller continued.
The ADPH Perinatal Division’s website reported that in 2018 black infant mortality rate was 11.0 infant deaths per 1,000 live births compared to the white infant mortality rate of 5.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births.
More statistics regarding Alabama births and pregnancies include the following, according to ADPH:
- There were 58,162 births in Alabama in 2022 and 58,040 in 2021. There were 391 infant deaths in 2022 and 443 infant deaths in 2021.
- The percentages of low weight births decreased very slightly from 10.5 to 10.4, while the percentages of births at less than 37 weeks of gestation decreased from 13.1 to 12.8. Low birth weight is weight at birth under 2,500 grams.
- The percentage of births with adequate prenatal care decreased from 74.8 percent to 74.4 percent, and the percentage of births with no prenatal care increased from 2.2 percent to 2.3 percent. For births with no prenatal care, 60.0 percent were to white mothers, 21.2 percent were to Black mothers, and 18.8 were to mothers of other races. Medicaid was the payment source for 77.3 percent of the births without prenatal care, and the majority of births to mothers with no prenatal care, 54.3 percent, were to mothers aged 20-29.
- Overall births to teenagers continue to decline; however, the percentage of births to white teen mothers increased from 5.4 to 5.5 percent. There was a decrease in births to Black teen mothers in 2022 from 8.5 to 7.2.
- The percentage of births with maternal smoking was 4.8 in 2022, a decrease from 6.1 in 2021 and the lowest percentage recorded.
- About 25 percent of all live births occur with a birth interval less than 2 years.
For more information on infant mortality and state resources, visit the ADPH Perinatal Program website here.
