The rate of premature birth across the United States rose for the third year in a row, according to the annual premature birth report card from March of Dimes, a nonprofit organization that works to improve maternal and infant health. This comes after nearly a decade of decline from 2007 to 2015.
In 2017, the premature birth rate was 9.93 percent of births, up slightly from 2016, when it was 9.85 percent. The report card draws from the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
The difference in these numbers may seem small, says Becky Russell, the senior director of applied research and evaluation at March of Dimes, but it means about 3,000 more babies who were born prematurely. She says it's a worrying trend line. "If you look at the increases since 2014, cumulatively we're talking about 27,000 babies," she says.
One bright spot in the report was that three states and Puerto Rico did show a decline in their premature birth rates. The states with the highest premature birth rates were mostly in the South and the lower Midwest. The highest rate was Mississippi with 13.6 percent and the next was Louisiana with 12.7 percent. Vermont had the lowest rate at 7.5 percent.
