Infant mortality rate higher in Black mothers who used fertility treatment, study finds

Black babies born through fertility treatments have a death rate five times higher than white babies conceived the same way, a new study claims.

Researchers analyzed 7.5 million single births in the U.S. between 2016 and 2017 and found that more than 93,000 were conceived through fertility treatments. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Pediatrics, found Black newborns up to 28 days old died at a rate of 1.6% while white babies died at a rate of 0.3%.

Death rates were also twice as high for Asian, Pacific Islander and Hispanic babies than for white babies. However, there was no significant difference in mortality rates between those groups when the babies were conceived without fertility treatments.

“Racial and ethnic disparities in birth outcomes are not solely medical matters but rather symptoms of larger social, economic, and political factors,” the study’s authors wrote. “Socioeconomic disadvantages, poor neighborhood conditions, lack of access to health care, psychosocial stress, racial discrimination, and systemic racism also contribute significantly to racial disparities in reproductive health.”

Maternal death rates during child birth in the U.S. are the highest — 23 per 100,000 pregnancies — among developed countries and Black mothers are 2.5 times as likely to die from pregnancy complications or during birth than white mothers, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.