Kansas Health Institute | Information For Policy Makers. Health for Kansans.

TOPEKA — Kansas public health officials say they are an important step closer to understanding the state’s high infant mortality rate.

This week, the House and Senate approved House Bill 2454, which will allow Kansas Department of Health and Environment staff to interview mothers of newborns about their pregnancies. Currently, Kansas law specifically prevents KDHE from using data from birth certificates to contact new mothers about, among other things, their prenatal care.

“You have to be able to get the data to be able to take even that first step in reducing the infant mortality rates in the state,” said Dr. Dennis Cooley, a pediatrician and chairman of the Kansas Blue Ribbon Panel on Infant Mortality. “I just can’t emphasize enough how important this piece of legislation was.”

The House approved a conference committee report on the bill on Wednesday, 114-7. The Senate approved the report on Tuesday, 40-0.

“This is the most important thing we’ve done this year in my opinion,” said Sen. Roger Reitz, R-Manhattan. Reitz is a physician.

Data from 2007 showed that Kansas’ rate of 7.9 infant deaths per 1,000 live births was 20 percent higher than the national rate of 6.4 per 1,000 live births. Also, infant mortality among black infants in Kansas is more than double that of white infants. Black babies account for 7 percent of births but 17 percent of deaths – ranking the state 47th worst in the nation.

The state infant mortality panel made the measure contained in HB 2454 its top priority when it released a series of recommendations earlier this year to address the high infant mortality rate.

But it had a bumpy ride through the Senate, which killed an earlier version of the bill.

Sen. Mary Pilcher Cook, an Olathe Republican, offered several times an amendment that would have changed some of the definitions in the bill and would have allowed special stillborn certificates to be issued for some pregnancies not carried to term.

The conference report approved by both chambers did not include Pilcher Cook’s amendment, which supporters including Kansas Action for Children said would have obstructed the bill’s original intent.

“Without the opportunities this legislation has allowed us, we would continue to be in the dark about why Kansas has such a high infant mortality rate,” said Suzanne Wikle, director of health policy for the child advocacy group.

Dr. Jason Eberhart-Phillips, state health officer at KDHE, said the state would now be able to apply for federal funds to survey as many as 2,500 mothers of newborns each year.

By talking to mothers across the state and sampling populations with the highest infant mortality rates, he said, KDHE and local communities can take steps to help women obtain appropriate prenatal care and other services for their babies.

“It’s not going to be any good to collect all this information and let it collect dust somewhere,” Eberhart-Phillips said. “We want this to inform real action and help us target the limited resources we have to where we can be most effective.”

KDHE in 2006 applied for a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant for the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, said Linda Kenney, director of the agency’s Bureau of Family Health.

The application, she said, was rejected in large part because KDHE could not contact mothers of newborns.

“We’ve never had maternal surveillance before,” Kenney said. “Surveillance of women’s health care access and maternal behaviors allows you to come up with the information you need to make changes in the system or services and supports needed by women, and find areas of the state where women and providers might need more little extra help or resources.”

The agency intends to reapply for the grant in January 2011, she said. If successful, the project could begin next spring.

Currently, more than 37 states and cities participate in the grant program.

The bill will also make it possible to create community-level review boards to study infant deaths.

The implementation of community review boards was another recommendation made by the infant mortality panel.

“Some of our recommendations didn’t necessarily depend on this step, but a large portion of them did,” Cooley said. “If this bill hadn’t passed, I don’t know what we would have been able to do. That would have set us back.”

The bill also will require prospective workers in KDHE’s bureau of vital statistics to undergo background checks before they are eligible for employment.