Samantha Bradley holds her 1-year-old son, Adris, in Long Beach, Calif. Adris, born premature, required heart and eye surgery.
Samantha Bradley was only six months pregnant. She had already miscarried once. She knew she needed to get to an emergency room.
“I was in tears,” she said. “The only thing I could think was, ‘Get me to a hospital.’ ”
On vacation in Palm Springs, Bradley and her sister rushed to a nearby hospital. About 30 minutes later, Bradley gave birth to her son, Adris. The baby weighed just 1 pound, 8 ounces — a little more than a bag of coffee.
Adris would spend four months in the hospital, undergoing surgery to close a valve near his heart and eye surgery caused by a disease common in premature infants.
Black women like Bradley are 1½ times as likely as white women to give birth prematurely, and their babies are more than twice as likely to die before their first birthday.
Researchers once blamed a lack of prenatal care for the disparity. Now, research shows that the explanation is much more complex, rooted in the years before the women even get pregnant. Black women are more likely to be poor, have less education, lack health insurance and have chronic conditions such as diabetes and obesity.
“They are coming into the pregnancy at higher risk,” said Kay Johnson, who chairs the advisory committee on infant mortality for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “By the time they see a doctor, seven months is too short to repair long-term adverse health.”
The leading causes of infant mortality are preterm birth and low birth weight. Even if premature children survive, they can face lifelong health or developmental problems.
The nation’s health care overhaul is expected to help close racial gaps by increasing access to preventive care, health insurance and family planning, Johnson said. The government also is investing in projects to reduce preterm birth and infant mortality.
“While there are all these medical risk factors, there are a whole bunch of other social risks,” said Erin Saleeby, director of women’s health programs for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. “The medical side of it will never be enough.”
Socioeconomics and medical care don’t fully explain why black women disproportionately lose their babies. Even black women who are highly educated are at higher risk than white women with less education.
That may be because of the cumulative effects of racism and stress, said Johnson, citing research on the subject.
Meridith Merchant, 42, a licensed psychologist who lives in Los Angeles, said she did all she was supposed to do during her pregnancy in 2005, eating well and attending all her prenatal appointments.
When she was 6½ months pregnant, her water broke. At Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, she gave birth to a girl, Nailah Asha, who weighed just 2 pounds.
Nailah spent five months in the neonatal intensive care unit, until she could eat and breathe on her own.
Merchant and her husband spent long hours at the hospital. Nailah was born with heart defects, and several weeks after her birth, she tested positive for Down syndrome.
She went home after five months but had trouble gaining weight. One day, Merchant was holding Nailah when her body went limp. Merchant called 911. Her daughter died at the hospital of an intestinal disorder. It was one day before her first birthday.
Every year, Merchant said, she commemorates Nailah’s birthday.
Source: http://www.timesdispatch.com/news