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Leveraging A Continuum of Prenatal-to-Three Supports to Address Infant Mortality

Policy Manager Kayla Goldfarb reflects on the need for a comprehensive prenatal-to-three system of support for families to enhance infant health statewide.

Kayla Goldfarb January 28, 2025
  • Policy and Systems
  • Blog

The Illinois Department of Public Health’s 2024 Illinois Infant Mortality Data Report sheds additional light on the critical public health challenges impacting Illinois families and emphasizes the need for a strategic policy response. As Illinois continues to work to enhance infant health statewide, a comprehensive prenatal-to-three system of support for families must be a critical piece of the solution.  

As highlighted in the IDPH report, though it has declined over the last decade in 2021, Illinois’ infant mortality rate was 5.6 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, with profound disparities particularly affecting Black families. Illinois has not yet met the Healthy People 2030 goal of no more than 5.0 infant deaths per 1,000 live births and had the 28th lowest state infant mortality rate out of the 50 US states in 2021.  

Significant and concerning racial disparities in infant mortality persist. In Illinois, the infant mortality rate among infants born to Black women is nearly three times that of infants born to White, Hispanic, and Asian women. The leading causes of infant mortality in Illinois are effects of prematurity and fetal malnutrition, birth defects, sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) and pregnancy/delivery complications. The Black-White inequity in infant mortality is heavily influenced by trends in deaths due prematurity and SUID, with non-Hispanic Black infants more than four times as likely to die of SUID than non-Hispanic White and Hispanic infants. 

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Addressing infant mortality demands a holistic, coordinated policy transformation. No program or family-support service is a silver bullet, but we know the state can build on existing investments and innovations to help address infant mortality. Among the key policy priorities outlined by Start Early’s Illinois Policy agenda, the state should renew its commitment to funding a continuum of prenatal-to-three supports, including:  

  • Expediting the creation of a statewide system for Universal Newborn Screening and Support (UNSS) services to provide voluntary, short-term and in-home screening and referral services to every family with a newborn shortly after birth to help connect them to the supportive services and resources they may need and want. 
  • Investing in doula services, including exploring strategies to make it easier for programs to participate in Medicaid reimbursement to expand access to these vital support services that can impact infant and maternal health outcomes.
  • Expanding access to early childhood home visiting services, which can help address rates of prematurity, timely utilization of prenatal care, access to nutrition supports and safe-sleep and other SUID prevention education.  

By investing in UNSS, doula and home visiting, along with state-level infrastructure to support the coordination of these services with health, economic security and other essential health and prevention services, Illinois can create a more robust support system for expecting families.  

About the Author

Kayla Goldfarb

Kayla Goldfarb

Policy Manager, Start Early

Kayla Goldfarb is a policy manager with the Illinois Policy Team and primarily focuses on home visiting where she provides staffing support to the Illinois Home Visiting Task Force.

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