Infant mortality gap widens for multiple births

NEW YORK, Dec 24 (Reuters) While infant mortality has dropped significantly overall in recent years, the gap between whites and blacks widened with multiple births in the ten years between 1989-1991 and 1999-2001, researchers report.

Drs Barbara Luke of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, and Morton B. Brown of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, studied the most recent decade on record in the US Birth Cohort Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Sets for changes in overall infant mortality rates and in mortality risk with multiple births.

They also assessed the risks by race.

The crude figures, reported in the medical journal Pediatrics, show there were 11,317,895 live births in 1989-1991 and 11,181,095 in 1999-2001. There were 89,823 infant deaths in 1989-1991 and 67,129 in 1999-2001.

Infant mortality risk decreased significantly for singleton, twin and triplet births. The decreases were greater for twins overall and for twins born at less than 37 weeks gestation. For triplets, risk dropped for those born at less than 39 weeks gestation.

When the risks were analyzed by race, infant mortality decreased significantly for all singletons, and for twins and triplets born at every gestational age for whites. For blacks, risk dropped for singletons overall, for twins born at less than 37 weeks gestation and for triplets born between 25-28 weeks gestation.

Drs Luke and Brown point out that ''the improved survival of smaller and more immature infants has long-term social, economic and health implications.'' Reuters SSC GC0923