An NPR segment (December 20, 2017) cited scientists who have spent decades researching the high death rate of African American infants. “Black babies in the United States die at just over two times the rate of white babies in the first year of their life,” says Arthur James, an OB-GYN at Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University in Columbus. . . . The majority of those black infants that die are born premature, says James, because black mothers . . . have a higher risk of going into early labor. . . . “We think that higher levels of stress hormones increase the incidence of pre-term labor,” he says. Additionally, Richard David and James Collins determined that the experience of racial discrimination is a cause of stress and a powerful predictor of a very low birth weight outcome.
