Infant Mortality of Mexicans in U.S. Low

Researchers are not sure why, but a new study shows that Mexican-Americans, whose prenatal care is as poor as that of blacks, have a much better infant mortality rate.

Mexican-American women and their babies are “a real anomaly,” said Dr. Joel C. Kleinman, an analyst with the National Center for Health Statistics, a branch of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control.

They “have a much, much lower level of education, tend to be poorer and get relatively little prenatal care, but they do very well” in infant mortality, he said.

“There are a number of hypotheses” why Mexican-American infants have a better survival rate than black infants, Kleinman said. Those hypotheses include “a lot more social support than other comparable groups, like blacks,” and “maybe some dietary factors we are not aware of,” he said.

The study found that 18.7 of every 1,000 black infants born in the United States died before their first birthday, more than double the Anglo rate and worst of any ethnic group studied.

Mexican-Americans’ infant mortality rate was only 9.0, slightly better than the Anglo rate of 9.1.