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After years of declines in sudden unexpected infant deaths (SUID), rates have been ticking up again, particularly among babies born to Black mothers, new research shows. The findings, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, help explain a puzzling widening of the disparity in infant mortality rates between white and Black populations since 2020.

"This study provides evidence that there is an acute crisis right now in sudden unexplained infant death, a category of cause of death that we assumed we got under control a long time ago," said co-author Leslie Root, a demographer and assistant research professor in the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Mortality rates for babies born to Black mothers are about twice those for babies born to white mothers, a gap that has persisted for decades. Experts point to higher rates of preterm birth among Black women as the primary cause of the gap, and public health campaigns focused on prenatal care and education have worked to address the issue.

To explore why, Root and her co-authors analyzed federal data on nearly 58 million live births from Jan. 1, 2003, to Dec. 31, 2024. The data set included linked birth and death certificates for 366,384 infant deaths among non-Hispanic Black mothers and 224,733 among non-Hispanic white mothers.

The researchers grouped infants' gestational age into seven categories, from extremely preterm (28 weeks) to post-term (42 weeks), to compare mortality rates among white and Black infants born at each gestational age.

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