Barry Bames
Appearances
Health Chatter
Infant Mortality
Yeah, Michelle, when I was in practice, I'm not a family physician by training, and I used to do, you know, OB, so I would, you know, deliver babies and do prenatal care. I remember over the arc of my practice life, and this will go back to even the time that Stan was at the School of Public Health and Maternal and Child Health. But I remember that there were two initiatives
Health Chatter
Infant Mortality
that was an area of focus. One of them, which addressed the injuries issue, was the whole car seat programs. And there was a great emphasis on that. And I know a lot of health plans started to provide free car seats, and they still do, because that was clearly one of the top, probably one of the top five
Health Chatter
Infant Mortality
causes of infant mortality and then there was also a big uh push uh it kind of lumped together but it was premature birth you know premature labor um and sort of linked to that was the low birth weight because that was also a risk if if infants weren't weren't growing and you know again this is sort of you know it's not a 1921 1922 or just in the past few years it's sort of
Health Chatter
Infant Mortality
stepping back a little bit over, if I look over a wider time horizon, those are two initiatives that I know, you know, there's a lot of effort into that. On those two things in particular, do you have information on what the, you know, the payback or the, you know, what was the results of some of those things? Did they make an impact?
Health Chatter
Infant Mortality
on some of the, it's not going to eliminate it completely, but did it have a positive impact on reducing some of the infant mortality rates over a longer period of time?
Health Chatter
Infant Mortality
I came away, Stan, and Michelle, thank you very much as well. I also came away with feeling disheartened that this is still as prominent a problem that has been just going on for decades. And it's still with us. And, you know, seemingly it's like trying to move mountains and very difficult. And at the same time, the other part of this is feeling heartened
Health Chatter
Infant Mortality
by the fact of the initiatives that are being tried. Because it's multifactorial, there probably is not gonna be a secret sauce that just, you know, like one thing that does it. And also, you know, that knowing that Minnesota is, you know, really a leader in a way in being under that 5.0, at least for the healthy people you know, 2030 kind of things. And so that's good to know.
Health Chatter
Infant Mortality
But again, you know, it boils down, I think, to issues of disparities and poverty. And those are societal things that, you know, Scandinavian countries, Japan, a lot of these other industrial nations really provide support for health and families, et cetera. And that's lacking in our, you know, in our country.
Health Chatter
Infant Mortality
And it's, again, this thing, think globally about how this remains an issue, act locally. And, you know, like I say, at least Minnesota is in relatively good shape. Doesn't mean that we can't do better because clearly, you know, we can. And there's still a ways to go. And it's at least good to know that people like yourself are being a driver to, you know, come up with
Health Chatter
Infant Mortality
initiatives that may, you know, impact this in a positive way. So again, thank you.
Health Chatter
Infant Mortality
Yeah. Michelle, I just had a quick question regarding access. It comes in a lot of different flavors. It's whether you have insurance, where the doctors are. You just mentioned with a lot of hospital closings, et cetera. And I was just curious if you've noticed a disparity between rural infant mortality versus urban suburban mortality.
Health Chatter
Infant Mortality
I know what, you know, based on all the factors that you talked about, I kind of, you know, understand that. But how does it get impacted by the rural-urban divide when it comes to infant mortality? Can you speak to that and share some of your wisdom on that?