According to a new study, 2005 Hurricanes Katrina and Rita increased the deaths in newborn babies in the most affected parishes of Louisiana by the storm.
The study suggests that if stillbirths which were associated with stress due to the hurricanes are included, the 2005 storms caused around 117 to 205 deaths in additional to the nearly 2,000 deaths of adults and children.
Katrina struck the state of Louisiana on Aug. 29 while Rita struck after almost a month on Sept. 24, both in 2005. The storms caused huge infrastructure and property damage and left a trail of injuries, fatalities trauma and ruin. While Hurricane Rita ranks fourth as the most intense storm ever recorded in American history, Katrina was the natural disaster that cost America the most.
Women who resided in areas with the largest damage and ruin were over twice as likely to experience stillbirth compared to women who were in areas of Louisiana which went through no destruction. When researchers analyzed the data, they found that each increase in percentage in property damage a region suffered, the total number of deaths in newborn babies increased by around 1.7 percent.
In the study, researchers studied the stillbirth risk of pregnant women in undamaged and damaged areas after 28 months since Katrina struck. The stillbirth risk was 40 percent higher in 10 to 50 percent damaged areas of Louisiana compared to undamaged areas and over twice as high in more than 50 percent damaged areas. The estimates show that stillbirths cover about 17.5 percent to 30.5 percent of the total fatalities in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
"Insofar as our empirical findings meaningfully generalize in time, the health risks to the unborn and their perinatal development will likely increase with more frequent and intense hurricanes," the researchers wrote.
According to the lead author of the study, associate professor of demography Sammy Zahran of Colorado State University, two mothers who have equal characteristics such as race and age could have different risks of stillbirth. If one mother lives in a highly destroyed part of Louisiana, the risk is also higher.
