September 24, 2007
Governor's strategy to reduce unintended pregnancies, promote infant safe sleep critical to drop in rates
LANSING - Governor Jennifer M. Granholm today announced that infant mortality rates - especially among the state's African American population - are now the lowest in Michigan history thanks to a concerted effort on the part of state and local entities to combat the problem.
While the decrease in the overall infant death rate - 7.4 deaths per 1,000 births in 2006, down from 7.9 in 2005 is impressive, the drop in the African American infant death rate was staggering - from 17.9 in 2005 to 14.8 in 2006, Granholm said.
"Our continued investments in health care are making a critical difference in the lives of our most vulnerable citizens," Granholm said. "If we continue to make these investments, we can ensure that this progress is sustainable."
In July 2005, Granholm unveiled a blueprint to prevent unintended pregnancies, which included Talk Early, Talk Often - a program designed to offer parents a resource for talking with their middle school-age children about abstinence and sexuality issues, and Plan First, an initiative designed to increase access to family planning services. Today, more than 30,000 women are enrolled in Plan First.
Further, Granholm has continued to promote the state's effort to promote safe sleep, encouraging partnerships between state agencies who are responsible for putting important safe sleep information into the hands of young families and the Nurse Family Partnership, which is primarily responsible
"All of these activities in concert at both the state and local levels are directly responsible for the significant drop in infant mortality rates from 2006," said Janet Olszewski, director of the Michigan Department of Community Health. "We are proud of the work we have done together to begin to curb the rates, but we need to redouble our investments to make further reductions reality."
Olszewski said continued investment in state programs that save the lives of infants is vital to ensuring that Michigan's number remains on a downward trend.
Since 2003, the governor has worked tirelessly to fund infant mortality reduction coalitions in Berrien, Genesee, Ingham, Kalamazoo, Kent, Macomb, Oakland, Saginaw, Washtenaw, and Wayne counties, and in the city of Detroit that collaborate on educating residents about preventing infant mortality. These coalitions developed case management projects to improve birth outcomes for women who have experienced a fetal death, a low birth weight infant, or a premature infant.
Additionally, the state's Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) - a program initiated by Granholm in 2004 in which nurses visit low-income women in their homes during their first pregnancies through the first two years of their children's lives - has been critical to the rate reduction. Today, the NFP is available in Benton Harbor, Detroit, Grand Rapids, and Pontiac.
According to national Medicaid research, it is estimated that each public dollar spent to provide family planning services saves an estimated $3 that would otherwise be spent in Medicaid costs for pregnancy-related care and medical care for newborns.
"Unintended pregnancy and infant mortality are issues that affect public health, our economy, and our society," said Dr. Gregory Holzman, Michigan's chief medical executive. "We must convince health care providers, members of the Legislature, and the general public that investment in state and local programs that reduce our state's infant mortality rate are absolutely necessary for our continued shared success."
Holzman said the infant mortality statistics will officially be unveiled at a Mapping the Future public health conference sponsored by Michigan State University and the Kalamazoo Center for Medical Studies in Kalamazoo on Monday.
"These results clearly indicate that even in the midst of difficult budget times, programs initiated by our state and local communities in support of pregnant women are working," said Dr. Arthur James, chief of Borgess Medical Center and associate professor at Michigan State University. "However, even with this substantial improvement, black babies in Michigan died at more than 2.7 times the rate of white babies during the first year of life in 2006. We've made progress, but we still have a lot of work to do."
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