The overwhelming majority of babies in the U.S. are born healthy, and their growth brings joy and comfort to their parents. But across the country, there is a whopping disparity in birth outcomes based on race. Black women fare worse than white women in almost every aspect of reproductive health. “Any state you look at, you see the same disparities, and race is the strongest predictor of disparities,” says Dr. Deborah Ehrenthal, of Christiana Care Health System in Delaware. “So we see higher rates of infant mortality, higher rates of preterm delivery.” Black women are about 60 percent more likely than white women to deliver babies early, and black infants are about 230 percent more likely than white infants to die before their first birthdays.