Wisconsin earns C in 2022 March of Dimes Report Card

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Wisconsin earned a C in the latest study looking at preterm births and infant mortality rates.

The average grade is slightly better than the nation's as a whole, but the 2022 March of Dimes Report Card shows the state is suffering from high racial disparities, especially in Milwaukee. 

"I'm not trying to be cynical, but it is essentially what I expected," Tiffany Green, assistant professor of population health sciences and Ob-Gyn at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said. 

Wisconsin's preterm birth rate slightly increased to 10 percent in the past year. The rate is higher in the City of Milwaukee at 12.2 percent, according to the report.

Babies born before 37 weeks are considered preterm.

"Those are the babies who tend to have the worst health problems, they're the babies that tend to be at higher risk for mortality, and those that survive have really a lot of challenges in terms of health and educational outcomes throughout their lives," Green said.

The report measures and tracks progress of racial and ethnic disparities' impact on preterm births. This year's disparity ratio shows no improvement since last year.

It also reports that the preterm birth rate among Black women is 68% higher than the rate among all other women.

"That has not changed all too much over time," Green said.

Green said decades of research don't point to one specific reason for pregnant mothers to give birth early, but she said it does show living in stressful environments can be strongly correlated.

"We need to do the work to make sure that we can support pregnant people in having healthy pregnancies and that means addressing upstream factors like poverty, addressing upstream factors like unstable housing," Green said.

Green said there's hope in improving these trends with a bill making its way through the legislature and advocacy groups focused on improving the social determinants of health. 

"I think when we do that, we're not just going to see improvements in infant health outcomes and pregnancy related outcomes, we're probably going to see changes in a lot of other health outcomes as well," Green said. 

The report shows mothers living in Menominee, Milwaukee, Clark and Forest counties are the most vulnerable.