It is perplexing to contemplate why more African Americans babies tend to be born low birth weight compared to white babies. One cannot figure out whether or not it is because their race or if it is due to the baby's mother. If it was due to race, then it can be concluded that African Americans are more prone to a gene that causes them to be born with low birth weight. If it was due to the mother, then it can be concluded that there must be something in the mother's environment while she was pregnant which caused her to be prone to give birth to a low birth weight baby. I do not think it is due to genetics, I believe it is more of the later. The African American women tend to be of a lower socioeconomic status. They have to deal with more stress in their life and live in poorer conditions which might result in a higher number of African American babies born with low birth weight. It is a vicious cycle where the baby's mother was also born with a low birth weight because her mother might have live in poor socioeconomic conditions. Hence, while the baby's mother might not be exposed to poor socioeconomic conditions when she is pregnant, the fact that she was a low birth weight baby causes her to be more likely to give birth to a low birth weight baby. Thus this is why it might seem to be a genetic factor to those of the African American race but actually they are more prone to give birth to low weight babies is due to their forefathers. I wonder if it is possible to reverse this trend. I feel that the first thing that must happen is to change the environment. It was mentioned that even though a pregnant woman may not be poor but lives in a poor neighborhood, her baby has a higher risk to be a low birth weight baby. It is not clear whether or not this is due to poor housing conditions or if they do not easily have access to learn about good pregnancy practices. Nevertheless, if we are able to try to fix this problem then those from a poorer socioeconomic background will have a lesser chance to give birth to a low birth weight baby. Then this vicious cycle of mothers who were born with low birth weight giving birth to low birth weight babies will end.
I agree that it is a vicious cycle that a low birth weight child will grow up to have low birth weight children and so on, however, I am not sure I believe that it may be the only defining factor that causes low birth weight. I believe socioeconomic conditions do play a large role in birth weight. In the book it says that outside factors such as not enough money for proper health care or nutrition can be considered biological factors for low birth weight. Low SES also means you generally live in poor areas not suitable for having children because you are exposed to many teratogens. Additionally, the book stated that anemia or inadequate blood pressure (things not limited to African Americans) could be a factor in low birth weight. An interesting study would be perhaps to measure the birth weight of children born to Whites and African American’s with high SES because maybe it could give more evidence that biology plays a stronger role than environmental factors to low birth weight.
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