Many pregnancies are safe and healthy. However, some parents experience problems with becoming pregnant, miscarriages, babies being born early or small, or infants dying. DHSS and the Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT) Program provide data on pregnancy, births, and fertility in Missouri.
What Causes Reproductive and Birth Problems?
Reproductive and birth problems might happen for many reasons. Parents’ genes, age, and health combined with other factors can cause problems with becoming pregnant and carrying and delivering a healthy baby.
Risk factors include:
- Not having access to medical care
- Not getting enough medical care
- Smoking, drinking alcohol, or taking illegal drugs
- Use of certain medicines
- Environmental exposures
- Long-term stress
Some problems could be connected to exposure to harmful things in the environment, like secondhand smoke, air pollution, pesticides, and other chemicals. For example, if a woman eats fish with a lot of mercury in it while pregnant, the baby's growing brain and nerves could be harmed. Exposure to lead could cause miscarriage, early birth, low birth weight, or developmental problems. Or breathing second-hand smoke or air pollution from traffic could cause an early birth or low birthweight.
Social problems that cause long-term stress, like being poor, having a hard job, and violence at home or in the neighborhood can also cause reproductive health problems.
For more information and helpful resources, visit Women's Health.
Reproductive Outcome Data
DHSS provides reproductive outcome data. The data can be searched by age, sex, race, ethnicity, and other variables.
Missouri Information for Community Assessment (MICA) - Birth Query
Search this query to find data on births, including:
Annual number and rate of low and very low birthweight births
Annual number and rate of preterm (<37 weeks gestation) births
Annual number and rate of births to mothers who had inadequate prenatal care
Annual number and rate of births to mothers who smoked during pregnancy
Missouri Information for Community Assessment (MICA) - Pregnancy Query
Search this query to find data on pregnancies, including:
Annual number pregnancies
Annual number and rate of live births
Annual number and rate of spontaneous fetal deaths (≥20 weeks gestation or 350 grams)
- Misouri Information for Community Assessment (MICA) - Death Query
Search this query to find:
Annual number and rate of infant deaths
Other Data Sources
Other pregnancy, birth, and fertility data are available at:
- Missouri Resident Infant Health Profile
- Missouri Resident Delivery Profile (Maternal Delivery Indicators)
- Missouri Resident Prenatal Profile
- CDC - National EPHT Data Explorer
Using the Data
Reproductive and birth outcome data can help you:
- See if some communities or populations are at higher risk of reproductive or birth problems
- See if reproductive or birth problems are going up or down over time
- Direct resources for preventing reproductive or birth problems
- See progress towards improving reproductive or birth outcomes