Black infants still die twice as often as non-Latinex White infants. It is well known that the health of the mother has much to do with these outcomes. This review examines several factors including:
African–American women’s lifelong exposure to structural and interpersonal racial discrimination are risk factors for preterm birth and consequent infant mortality.
Paternal class status is associated with adverse birth outcomes independent of maternal race and class status.
Race and class inequities are intertwined and are the root causes of the African–American (compared with White) women’s birth outcome disadvantage.
Why This Is Important: We struggle as a country to improve Black maternal mortality statistics This review has some unique suggestions about how this problem should be approached.