National Maternal and Infant Health Survey

The objective of the National Maternal and Infant Health Survey (NMIHS) is to collect data needed by Federal, State, and private researchers to study factors related to poor pregnancy outcomes, including low birthweight, stillbirth, infant illness, and infant death. The NMIHS is a followback survey -- it follows back informants named on vital records.  The 1988 survey expanded on information available for birth, fetal death, and infant death vital records and is the first national survey that included data on those three pregnancy outcomes simultaneously.  A 1991 longitudinal follow-up to the NMIHS was conducted to obtain additional information about respondents from the 1988 survey.   A birth cohort study is planned to begin in the Year 2000 in conjunction with the National Center for Education Statistics.

The NMIHS provide data on socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of mothers, prenatal care, pregnancy history, occupational background, health status of mother and infant, and types and sources of medical care received. Data from the study are used to evaluate factors affecting adverse outcomes of pregnancy.

The NMIHS is based on questionnaires administered to nationally representative samples of mothers with live births, stillbirths, and infant deaths during 1988 and to  physicians, hospitals, and other medical care providers associated with those outcomes.  The survey is based on 10,000 live births, 4,000 fetal deaths, and 6,000 infant deaths.

Earlier studies about maternal and infant health are the National Natality Surveys, conducted in 1963, 1964-66, 1968-69, 1972, and 1980.   A National Fetal Mortality Survey was done in 1980, and a National Infant Mortality Survey was conducted in 1964-66.

Early findings are published in Vital and Health Statistics, Series 22. Data from later surveys now appear in Series 21.