Jan. 24 (UPI) -- Researchers from the University of Michigan have found that Latina women who have immigration fears may be more likely to give birth to low-birth weight babies.
More Latinos are concerned with the state of immigration in the United States after the most recent presidential election.
A new study has examined how those fears can impact pregnancy and birth, especially birth weight among Latina mothers, both U.S.-born and foreign-born.
A team from the University of Michigan School of Public Health and Institute of Social Research studied a historic federal immigration raid in Postville, Iowa, in 2008 and the impact on subsequent births.
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The raid was one of the largest single-site raids in U.S. history, where military tactics were used to arrest 389 employees of a meat-processing plant.
The study looked at more than 52,000 births to Latina and non-Latina white mothers between 2006 and 2010. Infants born in the 37 weeks following the raid were considered exposed to the post-raid environment.
Researchers found that Latino babies born within 37 weeks after the raid were 24 percent more likely to be born with a lower birth weight than babies born the previous year. The findings also showed an increase in preterm births among Latina mothers when compared to their non-Latina white counterparts.
The study also showed that prior to the raid, there were similar rates of low birth weights among Latina and non-Latina white mothers of 4.7 percent, with preterm births at 7.5 percent. The numbers decreased for non-Latina white mothers after the raid but increased for Latina mothers.
"While health disparities often are believed to be caused by differences in individual health behaviors, access to health care, or even genetics, our findings implicate the impact of racial/ethnic stereotyping and related psychosocial stressors on health," Arline Geronimus, research professor at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, professor at the School of Public Health and co-author of the study, said in a press release.
"Our findings, then, shed light on what is to come for our nation's health if we continue down this road of anti-immigrant rhetoric and continue fueling a deportation regime, including implementing it by criminalizing immigrants and using militaristic tactics," Aresha Martinez-Cardoso of the School of Public Health and co-author of the study, said in a press release.
Nicole Novak of the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research also authored the study, which was published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
