The Death Rate for Babies in America Rose for the First Time in 20 Years

The nation’s infant-mortality rate rose 3% from 2021 to 2022, reversing a decadeslong overall decline, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. The rate increased from 5.44 infant deaths for every 1,000 births to 5.6 in 2022, a statistically significant uptick.

The U.S. rate is double that of many developed countries. Globally baby death rates have fallen for decades, though five countries that have reported their rates this year recorded increases for last year.

The death rate for women who give birth has also been rising in the U.S. Researchers who study the issues said the pair of trends indicate more women giving birth are facing issues getting proper care.

“The U.S. is falling behind on a basic indicator of how well societies treat people," said Arjumand Siddiqi, a University of Toronto professor who studies population health. “In a country as well-resourced as the U.S., with as much medical technology and so on, we shouldn’t have babies dying in the first year of life. That should be super rare, and it’s not."

The health of the mother is closely linked to the risks to tiny infants. Complications during pregnancy was one of the fastest-rising causes of infant death, the CDC said, along with dangerous bacterial infections called sepsis. Sepsis in newborns can occur when babies contract infections from their mothers during birth, or when a bacteria infects an infant at home who isn’t immediately treated for it.

The increased complications and infections, especially among women giving birth prematurely, could be related to stresses such as the opioid epidemic and the lingering effects of the pandemic, researchers said.

Higher prices for staples such as gas and groceries could also add to the stresses on expectant mothers.

“If you’re worrying about putting food on the table for the rest of your family, getting to your prenatal care appointment is probably not going to be your top priority," said Dr. Rebecca Carlin, assistant professor of pediatrics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

Health economists and public-health researchers have said the U.S. could improve its infant-mortality rate by following the examples of other developed countries with comparatively low infant-mortality rates, where public health authorities devote more attention to mothers and babies.

In many European countries, for example, nurses or other health professionals visit parents and their babies at home.

Such visits ensure that parents hear simple yet important advice, such as counseling parents to place babies to sleep on their backs and to seek immediate emergency treatment if a newborn’s temperature climbs to 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit or higher.

“We, as a developed country, should be doing some of the basics better," said Dr. Elizabeth Cherot, chief executive of the infant and maternal health nonprofit March of Dimes. “Too many babies are dying in the United States."

The CDC, the country’s public-health agency, reports infant-mortality rates every three months. Its latest report compared birth and death certificate data from 2021 to provisional data from 2022. The report didn’t give reasons why the rate was increasing, and researchers said they would have to do more study to determine the root causes.

U.S. death rates increased significantly for both infants in their first 28 days of life as well as infants in their first year of life, the CDC said.

The overall increase was the first that was statistically significant since 2001 to 2002. Over the past half century the U.S. rate has generally fallen, down from 26 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1960. The rate had increased in some previous years, but not to a degree that was statistically significant.

From 2021 to 2022, the infant-mortality rate increased significantly in four states—Georgia, Iowa, Missouri and Texas—while falling in Nevada.

The death rate increased significantly for babies born to American Indian and Alaska Native women, babies born to white women, babies born to women ages 25 to 29 years, male babies and preterm babies.

Changes in the rates for other groups weren’t significant, though the agency’s data showed that mortality rates among racial groups in the U.S. remain wide. The rate for babies born to Black mothers was more than double that of white mothers.

Write to Liz Essley Whyte at liz.whyte@wsj.com