CIDRAP-Sudden infant deaths have increased among Black babies, new data show

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Sudden infant deaths have increased among Black babies, new data show

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Sudden infant deaths have increased among Black babies, new data show​

Meghan Holohan

Today at 3:42 p.m.
Public Health


Nothing is more chilling to parents of newborns than the possibility of sudden unexpected infant death (SUID), which accounts for about 3,400 newborn deaths annually in the United States. And while campaigns promoting safe sleeping practices have contributed to fewer of these deaths overall, a study published this week in JAMA Network Open found that SUID rates have increased since 2020 for Black babies while they’ve stayed relatively stable for White infants.

“This uptick, and the fact that there is a racial disparity component, is so alarming,” Leslie Root, PhD, senior author and assistant research professor in the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado Boulder, said in a university press release. “We need to address it.”

SUID driving increase in infant deaths​

Root and her colleagues used a cross-sectional study to examine federal data for almost 58 million live births, including 366,384 Black infant deaths and 224,733 White infant deaths from January 2003 to December 2024. The infant mortality rate was more than twice as high for Black babies as for their White peers.

Black moms gave birth to preterm babies—those born at 37 weeks or earlier—more often than White moms (16.9% vs 10.5%). Preterm birth represented the No. 1 reason for the difference in infant mortality rate between the two groups.
This finding suggests that even if preterm birth disparities were eliminated entirely, a large mortality gap would remain, and sudden unexpected infant death is what is driving the increase.
Leslie Root, PhD
The absolute mortality gap fell from 7.7 to 6.0 deaths per 1,000 live births from 2003 to 2019, then climbed to 6.4 deaths per 1,000. While early births partially accounted for this gap, the share of mortality risk for Black babies rose from 21% to 32%.

“This finding suggests that even if preterm birth disparities were eliminated entirely, a large mortality gap would remain, and sudden unexpected infant death is what is driving the increase,” said Root.

The researchers remain unsure as to why SUID are rising but noted that the increase started during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, Black maternal mortality rates also rose. A surge of respiratory illnesses could have contributed to more SUID as well more healthcare disparities, such as with difficulty finding care.

“This study provides evidence that there is an acute crisis right now in sudden unexplained infant death, a category of cause of death that we assumed we got under control a long time ago,” Root said.