A new report by researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revealed that for the first time, the number of stillbirths in the U.S. has surpassed the number of deaths in infants before reaching their first birthday marking the end of the period characterized by higher rate of infant deaths.
Reporting in the July 23 issue of CDC's National Vital Statistics Reports, Marian MacDorman, and Elizabeth Gregory, from the Division of Vital Statistics, revealed that infant mortality across the country has dropped by 11 percent since 2006 but the mortality rate for developing fetuses during the second half of pregnancy remains the same.
In 2012, 24,073 infant deaths were recorded and this number dropped to 23,595 in 2013. Stillbirths though remained the same at the rate of 5.9 for every 1,000 births, which is not too different from the 2012 rate of 6.05.
"The lack of decline in fetal mortality in recent years, coupled with declines in infant mortality, meant that more fetal deaths than infant deaths occurred in the United States for 2011-2013 (although the rates were essentially the same)," the researchers wrote [pdf].
Aaron Caughey, from the Oregon Health & Science University Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, said that the decline in fetal death is actually a trend that began in the 1990's. He said that the reduction has something to do with the quality of prenatal care that pregnant women receive.
"I believe that this reduction is driven by the quality of prenatal care, particularly when you consider that high-risk pregnancies have only increased over time," Caughey said. "The most important take-away for clinicians is that high-quality prenatal care may actually lower the risk of fetal death."
Robert Goldenberg, from Columbia University, said that the findings suggest that people need to focus and exert more efforts to understand what causes stillbirths and find out ways to prevent it.
In some cases, fetal death after 20 weeks can be blamed on obstetric complications, genetic abnormalities, infections and issues with the umbilical cord or placenta but more often, no cause is found.
Race is also a factor that appears to affect fetal death rate with black women being twice as likely to experience fetal deaths compared with whites and Asian women. Experts hint that this cannot be attributed to genetic differences but it may have something to do with the women's access to medical care.
Photo: Jerry Lai | Flickr
