n Health Care Costs, 1985). The care over a lifetime for one LBW infant can reach $400 thousand (The National Commission to Prevent Infant Mortality, 1988).
Low Birth Weight Incidence in the United States
The proportion of live births with low weight in the United States did not decrease by any significant degree between 1960 and 1989, hovering around seven percent over the three decades (see Figure 1, which may be found on the follow ing page). The ratios reported nationally increased slowly from 77 LBW infants per one thousand live births (7.7 percent) in 1960 to 83 per one thousand in 1965, subsequent to which
Proportion of Low Birth Weight Infants United States: 1960 1989
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LBW Infants as a Proportion of Live Births
8.1%| / | / 7.9%| / | / 7.7%| /
| 7.5%| | 7.3%|
| 7.1%|
|=======================7.0%===================/=== 6.9%| /
| // 6.7%|
| 6.5%| | | | | | | | |
55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90
[Source: United States Department of Commerce, 1990]
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time, the rate declined to 79 per one thousand by 1970, and to 74 per one thousand by 1975. This steady decline continued through 1980, when the rate dropped to 68 per one thousand (6.8 percent), when the rate stabilized. With the exception of 1984, when the rate increased to 69 per one thousand, the rate
remained at ...