Richmond takes on infant mortality by battling smoking

In hope of reducing the city's high infant mortality rate among African-Americans, Richmond officials this week are starting a campaign urging pregnant women not to smoke.

Cigarette smoking in pregnancy is linked with early labor and low-birthweight babies (under 5 pounds, 8 ounces). Both are risk factors for newborns not making it to their first birthday.

The city's infant mortality rate, at 12.4 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2007, is higher than the state average of 7.7 deaths for every 1,000 babies born.

Just as troubling for health officials, though, is the fivefold racial disparity. In Richmond, the infant mortality rate for African-American babies is 19 deaths per 1,000 live births compared with about four deaths per 1,000 live births among whites.

In terms of lives lost, 41 Richmond infants died before reaching age 1 in 2007 -- 36 black and five white.

"There are many things that can impact someone having a healthy birth, and we know that smoking is one of those things," said Rose Stith Singleton of the Richmond Healthy Start Initiative, a Richmond Social Services program.

"The disparity is a huge problem," Stith Singleton said. "There are many thoughts about why that exists. Some look at stress, cumulative stress. Not just during the nine months of pregnancy, but the stress African-American women experience over their life course."

Overall infant mortality has declined in the United States during the past two decades, but the black/white gap has widened in some places. Other cities with an infant mortality rate higher than the state average and with a significant black/white disparity include Chesapeake, Norfolk and Roanoke.

Officials are providing details of the campaign today at 11 a.m. at Pine Camp Arts and Community Center in Richmond.

In the campaign, billboards and posters with the image of a newborn will give women "One tiny reason to quit" and have the number to the state's free telephone counseling quit-smoking line, 1-800-784-8669.

The messages were tested in groups of women around the city.

"These women said for an issue like this, having a message from a child versus a peer or grandmother would be more important," Stith Singleton said.

Radio spots will begin airing Monday on WBTJ-FM 106.5, an urban contemporary music station.

Stith Singleton said the project group also wants to run placards on buses with routes in neighborhoods with the highest infant mortality rates: in the 23222 ZIP code area in North Side; 22223 in the East End; and 23224 in South Side.

The effort is being supported financially by the VCU Center on Health Disparities. In 2007, VCU researchers were awarded a $6.4 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities to study poor pregnancy outcomes in African-American women.

About $100,000 of that is going annually for community outreach, said Sheryl L. Garland of the VCU Center on Health Disparities. "We went to the researchers and then we went to community partners to ask what things you think we should address," Garland said.

"The idea all along has been to come up with culturally sensitive messages where we can change a behavior that contributes to negative birth outcomes."

Garland said in a survey of 404 pregnant patients at a VCU clinic, about one-third admitted to smoking at some point during their pregnancy.

For others, pregnancy is a powerful incentive to quit.

"I wanted to stop anyway a long time ago, but it was kind of hard," said Richmond resident Renee McCoy Wiggins, who came to the Richmond Health District Tenth Street Clinic yesterday for a prenatal visit. She used to go through a pack of cigarettes every three to four days.

"Now, since I am pregnant, and I want a healthy baby, I just decided to give them up. . . . I had to choose between a cigarette or my baby's health, so I chose my baby's health."

Contact Tammie Smith at (804) 649-6572 or .