New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveals a rise in infant mortality, which had previously been trending downward since 1995.
There is a concerning rise in infant mortality in the United States, according to a new National Vital Statistics Report from the CDC.
The report, which used the data submitted from all 50 states and the District of Columbia to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, found that a total of 20,577 infant deaths were reported in the U.S. in 2022, a three percent increase from 2021. This is an infant mortality rate of 5.61 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. The rate was 5.44 in 2021.
Infant mortality had previously been trending downward since 1995, marking this as the first rise in decades.
The report analyzed the latest infant mortality statistics by a range of factors, including age at death, maternal race and Hispanic origin, maternal age, gestational age, leading causes of death, and maternal state of residence.
The five leading causes of all infant deaths remained the same as the leading causes in 2021, including congenital malformations (19.5 percent), disorders related to short gestation and low birth weight (14.0 percent), sudden infant death syndrome (7.4 percent), unintentional injuries (6.6 percent), and maternal complications (5.9 percent).
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Maternal complications had the most significant increase from 2021 to 2022 of the leading causes of infant deaths. The infant mortality rate increased from 30.4 infant deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021 to 33.1 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2022.
The finding underscores the urgent need to address the maternal health crisis in the U.S., where maternal mortality rates remain higher than any other high-income nation.
Additional report findings include:
- Infant mortality continued to vary by race in 2022. Infants of Black women had the highest mortality rate (10.90 infant deaths per 1,000 live births), followed by infants of American Indian and Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (9.06 and 8.50, respectively), Hispanic (4.89), white (4.52), and Asian (3.51) women.
- Infants of Black women also had the highest neonatal mortality rate in 2022 (6.44) compared with infants of the other race and Hispanic-origin groups.
- The mortality rate for infants of women ages 25–29 increased from 2021 to 2022, rising from 5.15 infant deaths per 1,000 births to 5.37.
- Mortality rates increased among preterm infants overall from 2021 to 2022, from 33.59 deaths per 1,000 live births to 34.78. Rates also increased for infants born at term, from 2.08 to 2.18.
- In the state-by-state analysis, infant mortality ranged from a low of 3.32 infant deaths per 1,000 births in Massachusetts to a high of 9.11 in Mississippi. Click here for a breakdown of the states with significantly lower infant mortality rates as well as the ones with rates significantly higher.