A Lifeline for Moms: Chapter 1 – A Sign of Hope
A Fort Worth family's story exemplifies the hardships that occur in 76104, which has the highest infant mortality rate of any ZIP code in the United States.
In December 2022, Bailey went in for her 20-week scan. The physician told her Collins had severe ventriculomegaly. The condition is a birth defect in which fluid-filled ventricles in a growing child’s brain are significantly enlarged to more than 15 millimeters.
The birth defect can lead to a limited life diagnosis for an infant.
“You can’t help but think: What did I do wrong?” Bailey said. There was “basically no hope. She’s going to pass – it’s not an if, it’s when.”
The Kennedys lived in Fort Worth’s 76104 ZIP code, which has the highest infant mortality rate of any ZIP code in the United States with 19 infant deaths per 1,000 live births between 2011 and 2014, according to Tarrant County Public Health. The average U.S. infant mortality rate is 5.61 deaths per 1,000 live births.
Infant mortality is when a baby dies within the first 12 months after their birth.
“As Mayor you see the community for all its good and all the ugly,” Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker said.
In 2022, Mayor Parker formed the Tarrant County Maternal & Infant Health Coalition (MHIC) with a goal of reducing morbidity and mortality rates among women and infants in Fort Worth.
The MHIC would later partner with the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University, UT Southwestern Medical Center, health systems, and community organizations in Dallas County to form the Maternal Health Accelerator (MHA).
One of the coalition’s initiatives is to improve morbidity and mortality rates in women and infants during complicated pregnancies by offering standardized provider training to improve obstetric emergency outcomes during delivery and have integrated postpartum support teams for high-risk mothers.
“We’re creating that closed-loop system and connecting moms with resources that often times a clinician is forced to go on to the next patient,” Mayor Parker said.
The Kennedys were able to access resources like what the MHIC is creating for all moms in North Texas for their daughter’s complicated birth. Collins was safely delivered on August 7, 2023.
“We’re very blessed,” Bailey said. “If she didn’t have the resources that she did she probably wouldn’t have made it.”