Pregnancy, Parenthood & Playtime

I was shocked, and a bit floored yesterday when I stumbled upon a new report released by the CDC regarding the infant mortality in The United States.
I first came across the article on Birth Activist another publication I have been writing for in recent weeks, and then after they had already broke then news, the AP (Associated Press) released the same story.

While I am not good at analyzing statistics, a friend of mine, Jill from the website Unnecesarean is, and she made a brilliant post about the release, and I would like to share a couple points that she made in hope to help educate parents, and future parents of our nations youth.

“Authors of Behind International Rankings of Infant Mortality: How the United States Compares with Europe explored what they refer to as the recent stagnation in the U.S. infant mortality rate that has generated widespread concern among researchers, policy makers, health care providers and activists.

Using data from the United States’ Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set and the European Perinatal Health Report, authors Marian F. MacDorman, Ph.D., and T.J. Mathews, M.S. of the CDC National Center for Health Statistics found that the main cause of the United States high infant mortality rate when compared with Europe is the “very high percentage of preterm births in the United States.”

According to the study, while infant mortality rates for preterm (less than 37 weeks of gestation) infants are lower in the United States than in most European countries, infant mortality rates for infants born at 37 weeks of gestation or more are higher in the United States than in most European countries.”

I hope I am not the only one that finds this a bit disturbing. We have the best care, and one of the highest survival rates in our babies that are born before 37 weeks gestation, which many consider to be “term”, but the highest infant mortality rate for babies born after 37 weeks gestation, when these babies are supposed to have smooth sailing. Could it be that many of these babies thought to be at “term” have incorrect due dates making them fall into the under 37 weeks gestation category?
It is the number of unnecessary cesarean sections, as well as unnecessary labor inductions that are causing complications in these infants?
We all know that cesarean sections, and labor induction are not risk free procedures, and often have greatly increased risks in some cases. Even the CDC the same agency that released this article have come out in the past month against the high cesarean, and labor induction rates.
Maybe because these numbers are starting to go hand in hand?

The United States remains near the bottom of the rankings.

These graphs help to really depict and put a picture, and numbers to how badly the United States is falling behind.

“The report states, “Reporting differences have little effect on the percentage of preterm births because most preterm births occur well after 22 weeks of gestation. For example, the percentage of preterm births for the United States in 2004 was 12.5% when all births were included and 12.4% when births of less than 22 weeks of gestation were excluded.”

Also, The United States has higher pre-term birth rates. I fully believe this has a lot to do with many factors.
The number of multiple pregnancies the result of fertility treatments. There are no laws regulating fertility treatments at this point in time, while there are “ethics” that some Doctors do go by, such as not implanting more than 2 embryos at a time, there are bad Doctors everywhere who will not follow these ethics, as we saw earlier in the year with the “Octomom”. Which is one reason we need stricter laws on these practices.
Another reason is lifestyle. The number of obese pregnant women is up, smokers, drinkers, women on some form of a prescription medication, and even illegal drug use. These are things that in the past were unheard of for a point in time, but it seems as though in a short period of time it went from taboo to, just sweep it under the rug. And our children are paying for it.

“MacDorman and Mathews attribute much of the high infant mortality rate in the United States to the high percentage of preterm births. Using the direct standardization method to apply the U.S. gestational-age specific infant mortality rates to Sweden’s distribution of births by gestational age, the NCHS found evidence that lowering the percentage of preterm births could have a dramatic impact on infant mortality in the United States.”

Like I previously stated.
If we stopped these elective procedures such as cesarean sections, and labor inductions at late pre term dates, such as 37 or 38 weeks gestation, we could possibly curb this number, as well as the complications and outcomes of these children. Many organizations, including medical organizations have spoke out about cesarean sections before 39 weeks gestation, and it seems as though now the labor induction guidelines are changing to follow suit. In most cases, when babies are healthy, Moms are healthy, babies will come when they are ready, no matter if you try and force them out early or not.  When left alone in a supported environment, most women will give birth on their own perfectly fine. That is not my opinion, that is just another fact.

Lastly, November is National Prematurity Awareness Month.

There are a lot of simple things that you can do to avoid a premature birth.

• Stay Healthy – Eat healthy, exercise regularly, and overall just live a healthy lifestyle.
• Let your labor begin on its own. Unless there is some type of medical reason for a labor induction, or early cesarean section, avoid them. We know that ultrasound estimates of due dates are often incorrect. Do not take the chance with your precious baby!
• Avoid common labor medical interventions such as the premature rupture of membranes (breaking your water), pitocin, and an early epidural. All have been shown to increase the risk of fetal distress, and can cause possible problems in labor, or slow the labor down.
• Choose a Health Care Provider with low intervention rates. If you go to someone with a 50% cesarean rate, your chances are, you have a 50% chance of having a c-section out of the gate. Same goes for labor induction, episiotomy, and other intervention rates.  Providers DO impact your chance of a safe birth.