Rate of birth complications higher in poorer neighborhoods

The place where a child is born has a major influence on the health of that child around the time of birth, researchers at Erasmus MC in Rotterdam discovered. Infant mortality in some poorer neighborhoods in large cities is twice as high as in other neighborhoods. More babies are also born prematurely, and babies are often smaller at birth in poorer neighborhoods, NOS reports.

The researchers compared babies and birth outcomes in the 20 municipalities in the National Program for Livability and Safety with other neighborhoods in the Netherlands. The neighborhoods in the program are areas with accumulating problems in the fields of education, poverty, health, housing, and safety.

Four of the 20 vulnerable neighborhoods had a significantly higher risk of infant mortality. All 20 had a greater chance of a lower birth weight or height.

“The living conditions in which they stay are likely an important explanation,” researcher Jasper Been, a neonatologist at Erasmus MC, told NOS. He stressed that these problems surrounding birth are “not due to personal circumstances, such as age and ethnicity.”

It is environmental factors that play a role. These include air pollution, noise pollution, and poor living conditions, such as heat stress, mold, and bad indoor air quality.

1.1 million mothers from across the Netherlands participated in the study with their babies. Of this group, 100,000 mothers and children came from the 20 poorer neighborhoods in the Netherlands.