Comparison of Native American births in upstate New York with other race births, 1980-86

The purpose of this study was to describe the neonatal characteristics of Native American (Indian) infants and the antenatal characteristics of their mothers as compared with white, black, and other race infants. The study population comprised 979,444 live births to upstate New York (exclusive of New York City) resident mothers between 1980 and 1986. Data were abstracted from vital records (birth certificates) and analyzed using a variety of descriptive statistics. Mothers of Native American and black infants had similar antenatal profiles (that is, younger, higher parity, lower educational attainment, and delayed initiation of prenatal care), which differed from mothers of white or other race infants. Despite having at-risk mothers, Native American infants were similar to white and other race infants with respect to the percentage of births that were considered low birth weight or premature. Black infants were twice as likely as the other three groups of infants to be low birth weight or premature. These findings suggest that other factors appear to be important in determining neonatal outcome and that typical at-risk antenatal profile of mothers may not be consistent across all racial groups.