REALITY CHECK: While the across-the-board decline in the IMR for Milwaukee is very encouraging, it still represents 111 babies who died before their first birthday - more than the 105 homicides the city had in the same year.
The 2007 figures are the first evidence of the effect of a $4.5 million grant the City received in 2006 from the Department of Health Services to improve birth outcomes in Milwaukee. As Commissioner Baker said, while Milwaukee has more work to do to get its infant mortality rate down to the national goal of 4.5 babies per 1,000 births, this year's numbers are encouraging. The City attributes the decline to a reduction in deaths from the complications of prematurity, a primary cause of low birth weight and newborn death among African Americans in Wisconsin. The Center is a partner on the Health Care Task Force on Pre- and Inter-Conception Care, a working group started by the Milwaukee Healthcare Collaborative and led by Aurora Health Care's Women's Health Services in collaboration with the other two major birth hospital systems in Milwaukee - Columbia St. Mary's and Wheaton Franciscan - to improve birth outcomes in the City.
The Center is keeping track of the major initiatives in Wisconsin designed to continue to reduce the infant mortality rate in Milwaukee and the state, as well as the disparities in birth outcomes among various racial/ethnic groups. This Catalog of Initiatives to Address Infant Mortality and Disparities in Birth Outcomes is a comprehensive database of initiatives in Wisconsin dealing with birth outcomes to provide opportunities for groups working in this area to collaborate and share information and resources. The Catalog is available on-line for anyone to search and update. The Center also provided seed money for research in the City of Racine to develop a formal Fetal/Infant Mortality Review process to explore prenatal, intrapartal, and neonatal factors that may contribute to the high fetal and infant mortality rate in the city of Racine and to implement Post-Partum Depression Screening For new mothers.
