Editing Infant mortality (section)

==== African American ====
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While earlier parts of this article have addressed racial differences in the infant death rate, a closer look into the effects of racial differences within the country is necessary to view discrepancies. Non-Hispanic Black women have the highest infant mortality rate with a rate of 11.3, while the IMR among white women is 5.1.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Infant Mortality Rate (Deaths per 1,000 Live Births) by Race/Ethnicity |publisher=Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation |url=https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/infant-mortality-rate-by-race-ethnicity/?currentTimeframe=0&selectedDistributions=non-hispanic-white--non-hispanic-black--hispanic&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D |access-date=2017-03-07}}</ref>

While the popular argument is that due to the trend of black women being of a lower socio-economic status there is in an increased likelihood of a child suffering, and while this does correlate, the theory is not congruent with the data on Latino IMR in the United States. Latino people are almost as likely to experience poverty as blacks in the U.S., however, the infant mortality rate of Latinos is much closer to white women than it is to black women. The poverty rate for blacks is 24.1% and for Latinos it is 21.4%; if there is a direct correlation, then the IMR of these two groups should be rather similar, however, blacks have an IMR double that of Latinos.<ref>{{Cite web |title=U.S. Poverty Statistics |url=http://federalsafetynet.com/us-poverty-statistics.html |access-date=2017-03-07 |website=Federal Safety Net |archive-date=2017-03-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170308044424/http://federalsafetynet.com/us-poverty-statistics.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Also, for black women who move out of poverty, or never experienced it in the first place, their IMR is not much lower than their counterparts experiencing higher levels of poverty.

Tyan Parker Dominguez at the University of Southern California offers a theory to explain the disproportionally high IMR among black women in the United States. She says African American women experience stress at much higher rates than any other group in the country. Stress produces particular hormones that can induce labor and contribute to other pregnancy problems. Considering [[premature birth]] is one of the leading causes of death of infants under the age of one, early labor is a legitimate concern. The idea of stress as a factor in IMR spans socio-economic status as Parker Dominguez says that for lower-class women stress comes from an unstable family life and chronic worry over poverty, while for middle-class women, battling racism, real or perceived, can be an extreme stressor.<ref name="southern-california-public-radio-2014" />

Others believe black women are predisposed to a higher IMR, meaning ancestrally speaking, all women from African descent should experience an elevated rate. This theory is quickly disproven by looking at foreign-born  African immigrants, these women come from a completely different social context and are not prone to the higher IMR experienced by American-born black women.<ref name="southern-california-public-radio-2014">{{Cite news |date=2014-03-03 |title=Why do black infants die so much more often than white infants? |work=Southern California Public Radio |url=http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/03/03/42483/why-do-black-infants-die-so-much-more-often-than-w/ |access-date=2017-03-16}}</ref>
Arline Geronimus, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health calls the phenomenon "[[Weathering hypothesis|weathering]]". She claims constantly dealing with disadvantages and racial prejudice causes black women's birth outcomes to deteriorate with age. Therefore, younger black women may experience stress with pregnancy due to social and economic factors, but older women experience stress at a compounding rate and therefore have pregnancy complications aside from economic factors.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Why Black Women, Infants Lag In Birth Outcomes |work=National Public Radio |url=https://www.npr.org/2011/07/08/137652226/-the-race-gap |access-date=2017-03-07 |vauthors=Geronimus A}}</ref>

Mary O. Hearst, a professor in the Department of Public Health at Saint Catherine University, researched the effects of [[Racial segregation|segregation]] on the African American community to see if it contributed to the high IMR in black children.<ref>{{Cite journal |vauthors=Hearst MO, Oakes JM, Johnson PJ |date=December 2008 |title=The effect of racial residential segregation on black infant mortality |journal=American Journal of Epidemiology |volume=168 |issue=11 |pages=1247–54 |doi=10.1093/aje/kwn291 |pmid=18974059 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Hearst claims that residential segregation contributes to the high rates because of the political, economic, and health implications it poses on black mothers regardless of their socioeconomic status. Racism, economic disparities, and sexism in segregated communities are all examples of the daily stressors that pregnant black women face, and are risk factors for conditions that can affect their pregnancies such as [[pre-eclampsia]] and [[hypertension]].{{citation needed|date=July 2023}}

Studies have also shown that high IMR is due to the inadequate care that pregnant African Americans receive compared to other women in the country.<ref>{{Cite news |date=April 11, 2018 |title=Why America's Black Mothers and Babies Are in a Life-or-Death Crisis |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/magazine/black-mothers-babies-death-maternal-mortality.html |url-access=subscription |access-date=May 13, 2018 |vauthors=Villarosa L}}</ref> In another study, it was shown that Black patients were more likely to receive [[ibuprofen]] after surgery instead of [[oxycodone]].<ref>{{Cite journal |vauthors=Sabin JA, Greenwald AG |date=May 2012 |title=The influence of implicit bias on treatment recommendations for 4 common pediatric conditions: pain, urinary tract infection, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and asthma |journal=American Journal of Public Health |volume=102 |issue=5 |pages=988–995 |doi=10.2105/AJPH.2011.300621 |pmc=3483921 |pmid=22420817}}</ref> This unequal treatment stems from the idea that there are racial medical differences and is also rooted in racial biases and controlled images of black women. Because of this unequal treatment, research on maternal and prenatal care received by African American women and their infants,<ref name="Chalhoub">{{Cite book |url=https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2018/05/10/450577/health-care-system-racial-disparities-maternal-mortality/ |title=The Health Care System and Racial Disparities in Maternal Mortality |vauthors=Chalhoub T, Rimar K |date=2018 |publisher=Center for American Progress |location=Washington, DC |access-date=22 October 2020}}</ref> finds that black women do not receive the same urgency in medical care; they are also not taken as seriously regarding pain they feel or complications they think they are having, as exemplified by the complications tennis-star [[Serena Williams]] faced during her delivery.<ref>{{Cite news |date=January 11, 2018 |title=For Serena Williams, Childbirth Was a Harrowing Ordeal. She's Not Alone. |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/sports/tennis/serena-williams-baby-vogue.html |access-date=May 13, 2018 |vauthors=Salam M}}</ref>

Several peer-reviewed articles have documented a difference in the levels of care a black patient receives regardless of whether they have insurance. For white women IMR drops after age 20, and remains the same until she is in her 40s; for black women IMR does not decrease when accounting for higher education, nor change based on age, suggesting that there is a racial element.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Urban or rural, black lives in NC are being cut short almost before they begin. |url=https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article239388203.html |access-date=11 April 2021 |website=newsobserver.com |vauthors=Bonnor L}}</ref> There is another element that must be considered: the effect of the intersection of race and gender. [[Misogynoir]] is a commonly cited and overlooked issue.<ref>{{Cite web |date=18 April 2019 |title=Racism and sexism against Black women may contribute to high rates of Black infant mortality |url=https://www.childtrends.org/blog/racism-sexism-against-black-women-may-contribute-high-rates-black-infant-mortality |website=Child Trends}}</ref> Black feminists have often been cited as the backbone of numerous Civil Rights events, but they feel overlooked when it comes to meaningful change that positively changes the lives of Black women specifically.<ref>{{Cite web |date=19 June 2020 |title=The Black Lives Matter movement does not exist without black women |url=https://commonwealthtimes.org/2020/06/19/the-black-lives-matter-movement-does-not-exist-without-black-women/ |website=The Commonwealth Times |vauthors=Shammet T}}</ref> During the June 2020 [[Black Lives Matter]] protests, many black feminists criticized the movement for excluding them.<ref>{{Cite web |date=5 August 2020 |title=Hidden in plain sight? Black female activists feel left out of BLM movement. {{!}} Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service |url=https://milwaukeenns.org/2020/08/05/hidden-in-plain-sight-black-female-activists-feel-left-out-of-blm-movement/ |website=milwaukeenns.org}}</ref> When examined through this lens, the increased rates of IMR of African American women becomes a matter of equity and an issue of social justice.

Strides have been made, however, to combat this epidemic. In Los Angeles County, health officials have partnered with non-profits around the city to help black women after the delivery of their child. One non-profit that has made a large impact on many lives is [[Great Beginnings For Black Babies]] in Inglewood. The non-profit centers around helping women deal with stress by forming support networks, keeping an open dialogue around race and family life, and also finding these women a secure place in the workforce.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Great Beginnings for Black Babies |url=http://www.gbbb-la.org/ |access-date=2017-03-07 |website=Great Beginnings for Black Babies}}</ref>

Some research argues that to end the high infant mortality rate of black children, the country needs to fix the social and societal issues that plague African Americans,<ref>{{Cite web |date=March 2018 |title=Fighting at Birth: Eradicating the Black-White Infant Mortality Gap |url=https://socialequity.duke.edu/sites/socialequity.duke.edu/files/site-images/EradicatingBlackInfantMortality-March2018%20FINAL.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180925071653/https://socialequity.duke.edu/sites/socialequity.duke.edu/files/site-images/EradicatingBlackInfantMortality-March2018%20FINAL.pdf |archive-date=2018-09-25 |access-date=2018-05-13 |website=Duke University's Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity and Insight Center for Community Economic Development |vauthors=Smith IZ, Bentley-Edwards KL, El-Amin S, Darity W}}</ref> such as institutional racism, mass incarceration, poverty, and health care disparities that are present amongst the African American population. Following this theory, if institutional inequalities are addressed and repaired by the United States Government, this will reduce daily stressors for African Americans, and African American women in particular, and lessen the risk of complications in pregnancy and infant mortality. Others argue that increasing [[Diversity (politics)|diversity]] in the health care industry can help reduce the IMR as more representation can tackle deep-rooted racial biases and stereotypes that exist towards African American women.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/blackmaninwhitec0000twee |title=Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor's Reflections on Race and Medicine |vauthors=Tweedy D |publisher=Picador |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-250-04463-1 |location=New York |url-access=registration}}</ref> Another attempt to reduce high IMR among black children is the use of [[doula]]s throughout pregnancy.<ref name="Chalhoub" />