Infant Mortality is Reality

• Every 12 hours, an infant in Tennessee dies before her or his first birthday.
• Tennessee’s infant mortality rate exceeds the national rate.
• Black infants are 2.5 times more likely to die within the first year of life than white babies.  
• Low birthweight babies are 19 times more likely to die in their first year.
• Black mothers are more likely to have a preterm birth than white mothers.
• Infants born to women who wait until the 7th month or later to start prenatal care or received no care were twice as likely to die as women who started care in their first trimester.
• Mothers with less than a high school education were nearly two times more likely to experience an infant death than those with more education.
• Twenty percent of mothers in Tennessee smoked during pregnancy.