US infant mortality dropped in 2024. Experts partly credit RSV shots
[May 09, 2025]
By MIKE STOBBE
NEW YORK (AP) — The nation's infant mortality rate dropped last year
after two years of hovering at a late-pandemic plateau.
Some experts think one reason for the drop could be a vaccination
campaign against RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, which is a common
cause of cold-like symptoms that can be dangerous for infants.
The infant mortality national rate dropped to about 5.5 infant deaths
per 1,000 live births in 2024, according to provisional data from the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted Thursday. That's down
from about 5.6 per 1,000 live births, where it had been the previous two
years.
CDC officials believe the findings will not change much when the final
numbers come out later this year.
Infant mortality is the measure of how many babies die before they reach
their first birthday. Because the number of babies born in the U.S.
varies from year to year, researchers instead calculate rates to better
compare infant mortality over time.
U.S. infant deaths fell to about 19,900 last year, according to CDC
data, compared with about 20,150 in 2023.
The U.S. infant mortality rate has been worse than other high-income
countries, which experts have attributed to poverty, inadequate prenatal
care and other things. Even so, the U.S. rate generally has improved
over the decades because of medical advances and public health efforts.
The 2022 and 2023 levels were up from 5.44 per 1,000 in 2021 — the first
statistically significant jump in the rate in about two decades. Experts
attributed those years to a rebound in RSV and flu infections after two
years of pandemic precautions.
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A sign marks the entrance to the federal Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, on Oct. 8, 2013. (AP Photo/David
Goldman, File)
 In 2023, U.S. health officials began
recommending two new measures to prevent the toll on infants — one
was a lab-made antibody shot for infants that helps the immune
system fight off the virus, and the other was giving an RSV vaccine
to women between 32 weeks and 36 weeks of pregnancy.
That effort is probably one explanation for the improvement, said
Dr. Amanda Williams, interim chief medical officer for the March of
Dimes.
In a separate CDC report released Thursday, researchers noted infant
hospitalizations in the 2024-25 respiratory virus season were more
than 40% lower than past averages.
But more work needs to be done to tease out other reasons, Williams
added, noting that much of the improvement in 2024 was in infants
who were at least one month old when they died. That could be
explained not only by fewer deaths from RSV but also from other
causes, like accidents, homicides or SIDS.
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