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Highlands Today

County's Infant Mortality Rate Increases

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By Douglas  Carman | Highlands Today

Published: May 19, 2008

SEBRING — The yearly infant mortality rate for Highlands County nearly doubled from 2003 to 2006, according to data from the Florida Department of Health. In 2006, more than half of those deaths came from parents living in Avon Park, and more than half the deaths in the whole county involved blacks.

The stated-funded Healthy Start Coalition of Hardee, Highlands and Polk Counties, a pregnancy and infant care program, also noted a trend where more infants were killed by accidental suffocations instead of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

However, the county's low number of births — a little more than 1,000 each year — makes it so that the county has to rely on five-year averages. Between 2002 and 2006, the latest year where complete infant mortality data is available, the county has a rate of seven deaths per 1,000 births.

Healthy Start Executive Director Mary Jo Plews said this still keeps Highlands County below the state average. Also, 2007's preliminary data mentions only three infant deaths in the county.

Plews suggested the county should focus its efforts on safe sleep education and teen pregnancy prevention. The coalition blamed the latter for Avon Park's disproportionately high number of infant deaths.

Jackie Rawlings of Healthy Start said that pregnant teens are more likely to give premature births, which is the leading cause of infant deaths.

"We know that teen moms are twice as likely to drop out of high school. The same for teen dads," Plews added.

Healthy Start also looked into other causes of the rising rates. They noted the rising number of pregnant mothers either smoking or being overweight, arguing this contributed to infant health problems.

Plews presented several infant mortality statistics Thursday for Highlands County:

- For Florida as well as Highlands County, infant mortality rates, which were declining since 1975, leveled out since 2000. From approximately 17 deaths per 1,000 births in 1975, Florida's rate remained above seven.

- 64 percent of pregnant women in Highlands County seek first trimester healthcare, compared to 77 percent statewide.

- Prematurity was the leading cause of death in 2006, involved in 66 percent of the births. Six of the 11 deaths were from Avon Park parents, and six involved black parents. Seven of the 11 deaths took place less than 24 hours after birth.

- 55 percent, or six of the 11 infant deaths recorded in 2006 involved black infants, while 45 percent, or five of the 11 deaths involved white infants. Black families have infant mortality rates that are 2.3 times that of their white counterparts in Florida.

- Highlands County actually fared better than the state in terms of the rate of low birth-weights, where infants weighed less than 5.5 pounds. Only 8.1 percent of infants born in 2008 weighed less than that, while 8.7 percent of births statewide had that issue.

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