Mothers' Smoking, Alcohol Use, Health Problems Take Higher Toll on African-American Newborns

11/25/2003

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Nov. 25 -- The following was released today by the Center for Public Information on Population Research:

Black mothers had babies with lower birth weights than other mothers with similar behavioral or health risks, according to an article published in the November issue of the journal Demography.

Health problems, being single, having a low level of education, poor prenatal care, and smoking or consuming alcohol during pregnancy all reduce a baby's birth weight, report demographers Narayan Sastry of the RAND Corporation and Jon Hussey of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

But most of these factors lowered birth weights more for non-Hispanic black babies than they did for non-Hispanic white or Mexican-origin Hispanic newborns, they found.

The researchers examined the links between maternal characteristics and birth weight among single infants born in Chicago in 1990. Similar to national trends, they found that more than one in seven non-Hispanic black newborns (13.4 percent) was low-birth weight, about three times the level among non-Hispanic whites (4.8 percent) or Mexican-origin Hispanics (4.4 percent). Low-birth weight, defined as below 2,500 grams or 5.5 pounds, is linked to poor infant health and development.

Medical problems (such as hypertension or gestational diabetes) had a much stronger impact on birth weights for babies born to black mothers than they did for other babies. This suggests that black women diagnosed with medical problems are sicker than other mothers, getting poorer quality health care, or both, explained Sastry.

More years of school increased the birth weight of a baby born to a black woman much more dramatically than it did for a white woman, they found.

"Policymakers who decide to promote infant health by improving the lives of women need to understand the differing circumstances of different racial and ethnic groups -- because these circumstances shape whether the improvements translate into better infant health," he said.

They found that mothers of low-birth weight newborns were clustered in several Chicago neighborhoods, leading the researchers to note the potential importance of mothers' experiences outside the home.

Despite low education and income levels, Mexican-origin mothers had babies with weights similar to those of non-Hispanic whites. This finding reflects better overall health, higher levels of family support, and significantly less smoking and drinking during pregnancy among women of Mexican descent, they report.

Demography is the peer-reviewed journal published by the Population Association of America. The full article, titled "An Investigation of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Birth Weight in Chicago Neighborhoods," is available on http://www.prb.org/cpipr. Click on "Articles from the Journal Demography." The Center for Public Information on Population Research, a project of the Population Reference Bureau, is funded by the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development.