IVF Babies Born to Black Mothers Face Higher Infant Mortality Rates

A new study has shown that babies who are conceived using in-vitro fertilization and given to Black mothers are more likely than white women to die in their first few months.

The journal published the report. PediatricsThe researchers looked into whether babies with fertility technology, as well as the well-documented disparities in infant death rates, also had racial differences. Researchers analyzed data from all singleton births (read: not twins) in the United States between 2016 and 2017 — so, 7.5 million births total. IVF technology was used for more than 93,000 births.

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These findings were shocking: In the first 28 day after birth, deaths among IVF babies from Black mothers were four-fold higher than those of white mothers (1.6 percent versus.3 percent, respectively). Hispanic, Pacific Islander, Asian and Hispanic IVF mothers had twice the infant mortality rates.

Speak to NBC News, Dr. Sarka Lisonkova, the study’s lead author, said she was surprised by the results. Her team believed that IVF treatment would result in lower infant mortality rates because most mothers who have IVF treatment have access to better quality neonatal care and money. However, systemic racism in medicine persists.

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“Once that pregnancy happens, the women are in the same system that has all those things that we haven’t yet fully accounted for — the systemic biases, the racism, the differences in treatments based on what type of insurance someone might have,” Dr. Madeline Sutton, an Atlanta-based OB-GYN who wasn’t involved with the study, told NBC News.

Pregnant African American mother holding stomach in hospital — African American mother in labor holding her stomach in hospital

Lisonkova added that most infant deaths occur within the first 24 hours of birth “because something has gone wrong either with pregnancy or childbirth, or the baby was not developing well in utero.” Black women in the study generally conceived at older ages than white women, so the added age might have increased their likelihood of pre-term birth.

Other reproductive health conditions — including Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), which disproportionately impacts Black women — could be at play here, too.

“More research is needed to identify preventive measures for reducing risks among vulnerable women who use medically assisted reproduction,” Lisonkova and her team concluded.

According to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology(SART), over 1 million babies were created in the United States by IVF technology between 1987-2015, according to SART.

Black mothers and their babies fare worse than white women, regardless of how they conceive. The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), in a 2020 report, found that Black women are three-times more likely to succumb to pregnancy-related complications than white mothers. This is particularly alarming, as most of the deaths related to pregnancy can be prevented with modern medicine.

Another 2020 report from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that babies who were born to Black mothers are twice more likely to die in their first month than babies who were born to white mothers.

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