A00284 - After 50 Years Why Haven't We Made More Progress?: Unnatural Causes: Low Birth Weights for African American Babies

 Over the weekend, I became a grand uncle again. By my count, that makes number 10.  In viewing the photos of this latest addition to the Jenkins legacy, I was once again struck by the miracle of life, especially African American life.

Recently, I revisited the PBS series entitled "Unnatural Causes".  The second episode of the series was entitled "When the Bough Breaks" and it profiled the racial disparity that pertains to low birth weights for African American babies.  The opening line for the episode reads"

"Several years ago, two physicians in Chicago set out to solve a mystery: why do African American women have babies that are born too small, at twice the rate of white American women?"

The two doctors looked at socio-economic factors as being the underlying cause for the disparity.  However, to their surprise, even affluent African American women were prone to having underweight babies.  As the program noted

"We were very surprised to find that the gap actually widened as education and socioeconomic status improved and then began to look at it from a bigger perspective and broader perspective, and really started to realize, well maybe it's something about lifelong minority status which is the driving factor here."

The conclusion these two doctors reached was "There's something about growing up as a black female in the United States that's not good for your childbearing health" and that "racism is taking a heavy toll on African American children even before they leave their mother's wombs.  It's an idea that's slowly gaining acceptance."

Later on in the episode, the researchers note that African immigrant women had birthweight rates comparable to United States born white women which appears to eliminate any genetic factor the disparity in birthweight rates between blacks and whites. However, as is noted:

"... African immigrants to the U.S. and white women born in the U.S. had similar pregnancy outcomes.  So if there is any genetic pre-disposition for low birth weight babies, it's doubtful that it falls along what we call racial lines.  It turns out that when African women immigrate to the US, it takes only one generation before their daughters are at risk of having premature babies at a significantly higher rate and with poorer birth outcomes."

"So within one generation, women of African descent are doing poorly.  This to us really suggests that something is driving this that's related to the social milieu that African American women live in throughout their entire life."

******

The documentary "Unnatural Causes" is a 2008 snapshot of a perplexing problem pertaining to low birth weights for African American babies.  That was over fifteen years ago, but as evidenced by the March of Dimes report set forth below, the underlying "social milieu" does not appear to have changed.

Peace,

Everett "Skip" Jenkins

Fairfield, California

June 26, 2024

Low birthweight by race: United States, 2020-2022 Average | PeriStats | March of Dimes

Low birthweight by race: United States, 2020-2022 Average Babies born too small are often born early. Low birthweight data helps connect the story between birthweight an...