Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbé.

Welcome to TTC Extra.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report Infant mortality in the U.S. rose by 3% last year.

That may not sound huge, but it's the first such rise in more than two decades.

The neonatal mortality rate that is deaths of babies less than four weeks old and the post neonatal mortality rate deaths of babies between 28 and 364 days old rose three and 4%, respectively.

The report showed significant increases in the infant mortality rate in four states, some with near total abortion bans.

Georgia, Iowa, Missouri and Texas.

That comparing last year's data or the year in which Roe v Wade was overturned and the year before when it was still national law.

Tiana, what do you think is the primary reason for this rise in especially neonatal and, you know, children up to the age of one dying?

We know that the constraints on the health care system from COVID and also this wartime transition that a lot of these health care facilities made just to focus solely on COVID means that preventative screenings are majorly backlogged.

You have a lot of people who are long overdue for mammograms, cervical cancer screenings, all sorts of things that are highly preventative.

Another thing that has just explore, did you know and this is because of COVID, but it has increased during that same time span obesity.

We know that there is a direct correlation between maternal health and your BMI.

And unfortunately, if you are obese, you massively have an increased rate of pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, emergency C-section, things that make it more dangerous for both the baby and the mother in question.

Well, the number may seem the percentage may seem small, but if you live in a county where there is no access to a maternity care or, for that matter, abortion, you're going to have your maternity rate increase.

And that's why you see this first increase in two decades.

You know, there are many types of pregnancies that nature tells women way in advance.

This is not working.

And the baby would almost always, under natural circumstances, just die before it's ready to be born.

But in this case, they're being forced.

The women are being forced to have these children.

They're being born in much less healthy situations.

Is that what you're saying?

And to maternal maternity care, I it's interesting that that the access is in both instances a non access to maternity care is going to increase the infant mortality rate.

I would say the bigger factors are some of those factors that Diana was referencing, the health of the mother during the pregnancy.

I'm speaking to you now as a 38 week pregnant woman.

So, of course, this is a very personal issue for me.

I try to keep in mind that despite a slight uptick still on average for a full term baby in the United States, it's about five deaths out of 1000 live births.

So it is a relatively rare situation.

If it were my baby or one of those five who died, of course, I wouldn't care about the statistics.

I would only care about my experience.

And we should do everything in our power to make that number zero.

Understanding it will never be zero.

But we have to, I think, focus first and foremost on the health of the population, the health of pregnant mothers, ensuring that they get the best prenatal care, to give them the best case, best probability of a good outcome.

Yeah, I tend to agree with Eleanor.

I think that this is a situation of access to health care which in poor and BIPOC communities is known to be severely restricted.

So health care for sure.

Also, you know, we do have the lack of access to abortion is impacting women across the spectrum.

And certainly we've heard stories, horrific stories of women being forced to continue a pregnancy due to no access to abortion of a, you know, fetus that is not viable, that will not live or survive the birth.

I've been reading a lot of reports about women who want children, but they if they find out a certain amount of time into the pregnancy that this child is not going to make it, and yet they're forced to carry it to term, which has really negative consequences for the mother's health.

Yeah, it can actually put the mother's health in jeopardy as well.

Right.

Her life.

And so I think that, you know, when you look at places that have completely restricted access to abortion, they're really endangering the lives of not just these the fetuses and the children, but the mothers as well.

All right.

Thank you all.

That's it for this edition of TTC Extra.

Whether you agree or think to the contrary.

See you next time.