Indiana health department reports potential record-low infant death rate in 2024
An early review of Indiana's 2024 infant death records showed a year-over-year decline — potentially reaching a historic low, according to provisional data from the state health department.
Indiana's Department of Health (IDOH) reported an infant mortality rate of 6.3 deaths per 1,000 live births, down from 6.6 deaths in 2023. If the rate holds after final review, it would be Indiana's lowest since the state began tracking the measure in 1900. The previous low was 6.5 deaths in 2019, according to IDOH data.
'With Indiana's infant mortality rate at its lowest in over a century, we see the real impact of everyone who is focused on protecting our most vulnerable Hoosiers,' Gov. Mike Braun said in a Tuesday statement. 'We are committed to ensuring that even more babies have a healthy start and a strong future.'
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Infant mortality refers to the death of a child before their first birthday and is often seen as a key indicator of overall public health. Indiana has long struggled to lower its rate, particularly among marginalized populations and in rural areas. For years, the state ranked among the worst in the nation.
'We are ecstatic that more Hoosier babies are celebrating their first birthdays,' said State Health Commissioner Dr. Lindsay Weaver. 'Seeing these efforts pay off is something to celebrate, and we are grateful to clinicians, healthcare centers and affiliates, local health departments and all our other partners for their collective efforts.'
Indiana's rate still remains above the national average, however. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the national infant mortality rate was 5.6 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2023. The federal 'Healthy People 2030 goal' is to lower the national rate to 5 deaths per 1,000 births.
IDOH officials pointed to ongoing efforts through Health First Indiana. The initiative supports partnerships between the state health department and local groups to improve prenatal care access, support home visiting services, promote breastfeeding, and expand education on infant safe sleep practices. IDOH also reviews hospital discharge and fatality data to guide future interventions.
Health First Indiana funding was slashed in the new state budget, however.
A final analysis of the 2024 numbers is expected later this year.
'The critical work to further reduce infant mortality continues,' Weaver said. 'The Indiana Department of Health is committed to our role to decrease the number of infant deaths in Indiana and give the next generation of Hoosiers the best possible start.'
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That's an inability to fall or stay asleep three nights a week for three months or more. The condition has potentially debilitating health impacts, including an increased risk of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and even car accidents. So the question is, why can't we sleep? Here to help me dig into the issue is Jennifer Senior, a staff writer at The Atlantic who recently went on her own journey to solve her insomnia and who shared her story in the magazine. Thank you for joining me, Jennifer. Jennifer Senior: Thanks for having me. Taylor Wilson: So let's start with I guess a 30,000-foot view of the issue. I know you spoke with a lot of sleep specialists, did a lot of independent research for your piece. Jennifer, what's the big picture here on American's trouble with sleep? Jennifer Senior: Right. Yeah. What's funny, I think the story was a little misnamed. I mean, this is really more story about, well, if you can't sleep, don't feel awful about it because there are so many shaming stories about people, whatever solutions people seek out. I do talk in the beginning about the way that the modern world absolutely conspires against sleep, that it just lays waste to your circadian rhythms. That people work two jobs, 16.4% of us work non-standard hours. If you're a white collar kind of professional, you've got these woodpecker like peck, peck, peck, incursions into your life all night and weekend long from your boss's work sort of never ends. I mean, we're just no longer yoked to the rhythms of the earth anymore. We're just part of this whirl of a wired world. Taylor Wilson: In the course of doing your research, was there something in particular that surprised you most about the problem? Jennifer Senior: I'll tell you what surprised me most, just generally. Whenever I interviewed any expert about this, and it didn't matter what species of expert, they could be an epidemiologist, they could be a neurologist, they could be a psychiatrist, they could be a clinician. Most of them said the same thing. There is a slight misconception that you need eight hours of sleep. There is some data saying this. There is another equally robust data set saying 6.5 to 7.4 is associated with the best health outcomes. Now it's very hard to tell. These studies are observational. They're not randomized. There was all sorts of confounds and problems with this, but this one study in particular had a million people in it. It's been replicated. There are plenty of people who believe this data and people vary. And over the course of a lifetime, your individual sleep capacity could change. In a funny way, that was what surprised me most. Right? This mantra, which is kind of a tyranny, get eight hours or else. Taylor Wilson: Well, you talked Jennifer about the modern world conspiring against us and our sleep, and I guess let's try to outline a few of the possible causes of what you call a public health emergency, right? What can you share with us here on this? Jennifer Senior: About other causes, you mean besides the kind of modernity itself and kids working on... Kids being assigned homework online, kids socializing online. I mean, adolescents are desperate for sleep. They're so hungry for it, and modern high schools and middle schools have them waking up preposterously early when their circadian rhythms are pitched forward. We've got a substantial sandwich generation that's taking care of young kids and their elderly parents. That's going to conspire against it. These are all immutable things. Also, there are elevated levels of anxiety now in our world, and anxiety itself is a huge source of... Or can be a source of sleeplessness, certainly can make one prone. So I mean, those are additional examples I suppose. Taylor Wilson: Let's talk through your story a bit here. When did you first realize that you had an issue with sleep? And walk us through your experience with insomnia. Jennifer Senior: It was 25 years ago and it was a very mysterious onset. I cannot tell you what brought it on to this day. It is a mystery. I had this extremely well-regulated kind of circadian clock. I fell asleep every night at 1:00. I woke up every day at 9:00. I lost my alarm clock. I still woke up at those times. I didn't have to buy a new alarm clock until I had an early flight one day, and yet sometime very close to my 29th birthday when virtually no circumstances in my life had changed one iota, I had a bad night, fell asleep at like 5:00. Thought nothing of it until they became more regular, and then I started doing all-nighters involuntarily, and I felt like I'd been poisoned. And to this day, I don't know what happened, but once that happens, the whole cycle starts to happen, then people suddenly become very afraid of not falling asleep and whatever kicked it off whether it's mysterious or known becomes irrelevant because then what you do is you start getting very agitated and going, oh my God, I'm not sleeping. Oh my God, I'm still not sleeping. Now it's 3:00 in the morning. Now it's 4:00 in the morning. Now it's 5:00 in the morning. Oh my God, I have one more hour, et cetera. Taylor Wilson: Well, you did write in the piece about the many different recommendations that she tried to solve your own sleep issues. What were some of them, Jennifer, and did any of them help? Jennifer Senior: Oh God, I tried all the things. This is before I sought real professional help, but I did all the things. I would took Tylenol PM, which did not work. I did acupuncture, which were lovely, but did not work. I listened to a meditation tape that a friend gave me, did not work. I listened to another one that was for sleep only that did not work. I ran. I always was a runner, but I ran extra, did not work. Gosh, changed my diet. I don't remember. I did all sorts of things. I tried different supplements, Valerian root, all these things. Melatonin, nothing, nothing. Taylor Wilson: You wrote in depth about one therapy that was recommended to you, and that was CBTI. That's cognitive based therapy for insomnia. Jennifer, first, what is this? And second, did you find any success by using this? Jennifer Senior: So cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, as you said, is the gold standard for treating insomnia. It's portable. You can take it with you. It's not like if you leave your sleep meds at home. The main tent pole of it, which is sleep restriction, which I'll get to in a minute, is very hard to do. I found it murder, the kind of easier parts, although they're still in a funny way, kind of paradoxical, are you have to change your thinking around this is the cognitive piece around sleeping and insomnia. You have to decide, okay, I'm not sleeping. So what? Now, this is kind of funny because there's this din surrounding us that says, oh my God, you're not sleeping. You're going to die of a heart attack. You're going to die of an immune disease. You're going to get cancer. All these things, right? You have to set that all aside and decide one more night's sleep that I can't sleep. So what? Right. That's one thing. You have to change your behaviors, deciding that you are going to consistently go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time, all that, and not use your bed for anything other than just for sleeping and sex. The hard part and the most powerful part that I found it brutal was the part that said you have to restrict your sleep. 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They're hooked on sleeping pills. It's framed as addiction, and no one says that someone is addicted to their Ozempic, even though a lifestyle change could perhaps obviate the need. No one says that they are addicted... Oh, that person is totally addicted to their blood pressure medication, even though maybe a change in lifestyle would help change that. Or that they're addicted to their statins, So I sort of bristle. And those who prescribe these medicines say like, look, if the benefit outweighs the risk and they're used properly, sometimes the real side effect is just being dependent on these drugs, and there's a difference between dependence and addiction. A surprisingly small number of people who take these drugs regularly, like benzodiazepines, like Ativan and Ambien and Klonopin, all these things, a surprisingly small number, like 7% increase their doses if they take it every night. So that's very small. However, there are cognitive decrements over time... Or not decrements. 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