Every year, DHEC releases its Bureau of Maternal and Child Health’s Infant Mortality Report. 2023’s edition reveals an already distressing trend has turned even more dire.
DHEC states that, “South Carolina’s infant mortality rate rose by12% from 2020 to 2021 (the most recent data available) and has grown by almost 40%since 2017 for infants born to non-Hispanic Black mothers.”
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) claimed more than twice as many children from the previous year. Black infants continue to suffer the most, dying at a rate of nearly 2.5 times that of white infants. The total number of infant deaths was 416.
The South Carolina Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Review Committee (SCMMMRC) also released a report. It investigated 66 pregnancy-associated deaths from 2019 (the most recent data available) and determined 22 deaths to be directly related to the pregnancy itself, an increase of 9.3% from the year before.
As with Black infants, the SCMMMRC found that Black mothers experienced a 67% higher pregnancy-related mortality ratio than White mothers in both 2018 and 2019.
These grim numbers do little to tell the story behind the stats, but speak to the desperate need to address social determinants of health in South Carolina and move the state upstream.
(Source: DHEC)