What Mississippi's infant mortality crisis says about the risks of Medicaid cuts

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For months, Dr. Daniel Edney had watched his state's infant mortality rate rise. "It just kept climbing," he remembers. "We'd get another death coming in, another death coming in."

As the public health officer in Mississippi, it's Edney's job to monitor the number of infant deaths in the state. When he saw the final figures for 2024, they were as bad as he feared.

Nearly 10 babies died for every 1,000 live births. For Black babies, it was even higher at 15.2. The numbers — the highest in more than a decade — led the state of Mississippi under Edney's leadership to declare a public health emergency on Aug. 21.

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"If having babies dying at the rate that our babies are dying is not a public health emergency, I don't know what is," says Edney.

Mississippi's infant mortality rate is among the highest in the country, but advocates warn that the rate across the U.S. is also too high. Nationally, 5.6 babies die per 1,000 born.

"What that translates to is 20,000 deaths every year," says Dr. Michael Warren, chief medical and health officer for March of Dimes — a group that advocates for improvements in maternal health care. "That's the equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing once a week for an entire year and killing everyone on board."

Warren calls the U.S. "one of the most dangerous developed countries for giving birth."

toggle caption Jared Ragland/for NPR

Warren and other experts who study this issue worry t