Syracuse, NY — Black babies in Onondaga County are more than 4 times at risk of dying than white babies, the latest data shows.
The gulf between Black and white baby deaths is now twice as bad as it was a decade ago, an analysis by syracuse.com | The Post-Standard has found.
That’s primarily because, since 2011, white infant mortality here has nearly been cut in half. At the same time, the Black baby death rate has grown worse.
The racial gulf exists across the country: Black babies die at a rate about 2.3 times higher than white babies.
Here, that gap is twice as bad: Black babies die at a rate 4.6 times higher than white babies, the analysis found.
Recent improvements in medicine, prenatal care and safe-sleeping education have lowered overall death rates among babies less than 12 months old. Pregnancy complications, if detected early, are more often solved than in decades prior, health experts say.
But the deadly difference between races persists because it’s about more than medical access, health officials and experts say.
Some Black families are more likely to face hurdles that make childbirth risky, advocates and experts say. Lack of transportation and childcare make it hard to get to appointments. Stress from violent neighborhoods plays a factor in pregnancies, as do fewer healthy food options, those local experts say.
At the same time, racial biases in delivering health care to Black mothers also contributes to the higher rate of Black infant deaths, two local doctors said.
“It’s all about power,” said SeQuoia Kemp, a Black doula who seeks to reach pregnant women who feel cast aside by the system. She has joined forces with more than a half-dozen other Black doulas to open the Sankofa Reproductive Health and Healing Center, on South Salina Street.
There are simply too many Black pregnant women who are ignored or falling through the cracks, Kemp said.
This has led to higher rates of Black babies who are born too early and too frail to thrive on their own….
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