Birth outcomes of Asian-Indian-Americans.

OBJECTIVE This study examines the maternal characteristics and birth outcomes of infants of U.S. resident Asian-Indian-American (AIA) mothers and compares those to infants of U.S. resident Whites and African-American (AA) mothers. METHODS Single live births to U.S. resident mothers with race/ethnicity coded on birth certificate as AIA, non-Hispanic White, or non-Hispanic AA were drawn from NCHS 1995 to 2000 U.S. Linked Live Birth/Infant Death files. RESULTS Compared to AAs or Whites, AIAs have the lowest percentage of births to teen or unmarried mothers and mothers with high parity for age or with low educational attainment. After taking these factors into account, AIA had the highest risk of LBW, small-for-gestational age and term SGA births but a risk of infant death only slightly higher than Whites and far less than AAs. CONCLUSIONS The birth outcomes of AIAs do not follow the paradigm that more impoverished minority populations should have greater proportions of low birth weight and preterm births and accordingly greater infant mortality rates.