Baltimore had the lowest infant mortality rate in its history last year, an improvement that city officials attributed to an aggressive campaign to seek out and treat pregnant women with health problems.
The mortality rate fell from 11.9 deaths per 1,000 births in 2001 to 10.4 deaths last year, according to preliminary figures released yesterday. For the first time last year, infant mortality among blacks dropped below the national average for blacks.
Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, Baltimore health commissioner, called the decline one of the most important accomplishments of his 11-year tenure as commissioner.
"This is a huge deal," he said, speaking at an afternoon news conference in front of the Westside Healthy Start clinic at 1622 N. Carey St. in West Baltimore. A quasi-public, nonprofit group, Healthy Start works to improve fetal and infant health.
Mayor Martin O'Malley called the decrease a "big, big milestone."
Because infant mortality has so many causes - nutrition, poverty, maternal and paternal health, and the quality of medical care - experts see it as a bellwether.
"Infant mortality has been one of the most sensitive measures of the health of a society," said Dr. Bernard Guyer, professor of child health at the Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Newborn infants are the most vulnerable people in the population."
Guyer, who served on Maryland's infant mortality commission from 1990 to 2000, said he was impressed with Baltimore's record because demographic trends - particularly the flight of the affluent - work against big cities.
"This is not a one-year phenomenon," Guyer said. "It takes work over years to get these rates down."
He warned that federal and state budget cuts could easily send the rates up again.
Rate has been high
Particularly in the past four years, officials say, Baltimore has worked hard to lower its infant mortality rate, which has typically been among the highest for the nation's large cities. In 2000, the last year for which national statistics are available, Baltimore had the fifth-highest rate, 11.7 deaths per 1,000. The only cities with higher rates were y Memphis, Tenn., Detroit, Cleveland and Washington.
Beilenson attributed the improvement to a reduction in sexually transmitted diseases among pregnant women, an aggressive program to find pregnant women with potential health problems and improved drug treatment for pregnant addicts.
