11-8-23 fdl county public health officer says rise in infant mortality rate is disturbing

The U.S. infant mortality rate rose 3 percent last year, which is the largest increase in two decades.   Fond du Lac County Public Health Officer Kim Mueller says the news is disturbing.  “It shows we’re going backward,”  Mueller told WFDL news.  “It looks like we haven’t had an increase like this since 2001-2002.  So one would question what’s going on?”  A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows significant death rate increases for white and Native American infants, infant boys and babies born at 37 weeks or earlier.  It also shows larger increases for deaths from maternal complications and bacterial meningitis.  U.S. infant deaths surpassed 20,500 in 2022.  That’s 610 more than 2021.  The report did not try to answer why the unusual jump occurred, nor whether the rise was a one-year statistical blip or the beginning of a trend.