The health of mothers, infants, and children is of critical importance. Complications of pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death and disability for childbearing women in many parts of the world. Comprehensive, high-quality maternity care can help prevent infant and maternal death and disability.

• About 10% of problems seen at birth can be traced to a specific agent (environmental agent, drug, biologic, or nutritional factor).
• The risk factors for low birth weight (LBW) babies are poor maternal nutrition, teenage pregnancy, premature birth, drug and alcohol use, smoking, and the presence of sexually transmitted diseases.
• Women who start prenatal care in the third trimester and women who receive no prenatal care are at increased risk for poor pregnancy outcomes. If all women began prenatal care in the first trimester of pregnancy, the number of LBW babies would be reduced by an estimated 12,600 per year.
• Teenage mothers are more likely to get inadequate prenatal care and are at a higher risk of poverty, inadequate weight gain, alcohol or drug use, and a nutritionally inadequate diet. All of these factors are associated with infant mortality and LBW.
• Drinking alcohol while pregnant may result in having a baby born with a group of birth defects/problems called fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Minor to major abnormalities can be seen in about one-third of the infants born to women who drank heavily during pregnancy compared to 9% for nondrinkers.
• Smoking while pregnant increases the risk of miscarriage, pre-term labor, stillbirth, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and lifelong problems. If smoking during pregnancy were eliminated, infant mortality could be reduced by 10% and LBW by 25%.
• Women who smoke while pregnant are more likely to have low birth weight babies (weighing less than 5.5 pounds) and babies whose physical and intellectual growth is below normal.

• On an average day in the United States 11,120 babies are born. Of these births, 1,280 babies are born preterm, 841 babies are born with low birth rates, 418 babies are born to mothers who started prenatal care in the third trimester or who received no prenatal care at all, 411 babies are born with a birth defect,, and 76 of these babies will die before their first birthday.
• Approximately 150,000 babies are born each year with birth defects.
• Approximately 3% of all children born in the United States have a major malformation at birth. Many more show problems of developmental origin with time, e.g., 6-7% by 1 year of age and 12-14% by school age.
• About 1.3 million pregnant women receive insufficient prenatal care. Up to 25% of all infant deaths could be prevented if women received adequate prenatal care.
• About 25% of all pregnant women smoke throughout their pregnancies.
• Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is the leading preventable cause of birth defects and mental retardation. FAS is estimated to occur in the United States in 1 to 3 infants per 1000 live births and for every child born with FAS, 10 more suffer from alcohol-related problems.
• An estimated 1 in 5 pregnant women, or approximately 740,000 women, use one or more illegal substances during pregnancy. There are about 9,000 births per year to narcotic-addicted women.

• In the United States , infant mortality rates rank 25 th among industrialized nations.
• After the first month of life, SIDS is the leading cause of infant death, accounting for about one-third of all deaths during this period.
• About 7,000 babies each year die of SIDS—nearly one baby every hour.
• More children die of SIDS in one year than all who die of cancer, heart disease, pneumonia, child abuse, AIDS, cystic fibrosis, and muscular dystrophy combined.
• In the United States , short gestation and low birth weight (LBW) are among the leading causes of neonatal death, accounting for 20%.

• The maternal mortality ratio among African American women consistently has been three to four times that of white women.
• Infant mortality rates among African American infants are 2.3 times that of white infants.
• Among African Americans, the LBW rate has declined slightly but remains twice as high as that of whites.
• African Americans are more likely to have other risk factors that contribute to maternal and infant care, such as young maternal age, high birth order, less education, and inadequate prenatal care.
• Women in certain racial and ethnic groups are also less likely than white women to breastfed their infants. In the early postpartum period, 45% of African American mothers breastfed, compared with 68% of white women.