Increase in child deaths after US abortion ban
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A new study shows that there has been a significant increase in child deaths in the months following the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The study was published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics. The study also highlighted that most of these babies had congenital anomalies or birth defects.
Dr. Parvati Singh, assistant professor of epidemiology at The Ohio State University College of Public Health and lead author of the new study, said, “This is evidence of a domino effect at the national level, regardless of the state at the state level.” .
Singh and co-author Dr. Maria Gallo, professor of epidemiology and associate dean for research at The Ohio State University College of Public Health, compared infant mortality rates in the 18 months after the Dobbs decision with trends historical.
They found that infant mortality was higher than usual in the US several months after the Dobbs decision and never fell to lower-than-expected rates, according to a CNN report.
October 2022, March 2023 and April 2023 had higher than expected infant mortality. Rates were almost 7% higher than usual, resulting in an average of 247 more child deaths in each of those months.
The new study also says that about 80% of those additional infant deaths could be attributed to birth defects, which were higher than expected in six of the 18 months after the Dobbs decision.
Singh said: “This is the tip of the iceberg. Mortality is the end result of any health condition. This is a very, very sharp indicator. “It could be representative of underlying morbidity and underlying difficulties.”
Other research has found that births have increased in states with abortion bans. Experts say part of that increase is related to a disproportionate increase in the number of women carrying fetuses with lethal birth defects to term.
Dr. Ushma Upadhyay, associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, said: “Whether the pregnancy was intended or not, we know that many of these are pregnancies that would have ended in abortion.” If people had access to those services.”
She was not involved in the new study, but is researching abortion trends in the United States. Upadhyay said, “The well-being of a pregnant person is inextricably linked to the well-being of the pregnancy.” Abortion bans can impact access and willingness to seek prenatal care and broader support systems, she said, and barriers are compounded.
She added: “People who face the most structural barriers in terms of poverty, lower levels of education, food insecurity and other life stressors are unable to access abortion care, and these factors also increase their risks of having poor health outcomes. outcomes in pregnancy and childbirth.
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