Click to expand Image An industrial plant in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, October 17, 2023. © 2023 Eli Reed for Human Rights Watch March of Dimes issued their annual report on US rates of preterm birth on November 17. The findings are a gut punch.Rates worsened between 2023 and 2024 in 21 states. Preterm birth rates among babies born to Black women climbed to 14.7 percent, 1.55 times higher than the rate for white moms. For the fourth year running, fewer pregnant people began prenatal care in the first trimester in 2024 than the year prior.In Louisiana, the hike in preterm rates is especially grim because the state has long had some of the worst in the country. In 2024, 14 percent of Louisiana’s babies were born too soon: an increase from 13.4 percent in 2023 and higher than ten years ago. Racial disparities are striking: 17.4 percent of Black women’s births in Louisiana are preterm, compared to 11.6 percent of white women. Nationwide, 10.4 percent of births are preterm.Louisiana is in a reproductive rights crisis. More than a quarter of all parishes are maternity deserts, areas without access to birthing facilities or maternity care providers. Abortion bans have also driven down access to prenatal care in the first trimester in part because healthcare providers fear getting into trouble if a patient’s miscarriage is misinterpreted as an abortion.But as a 2024 Human Rights Watch’ report showed, high rates of preterm births and low birth weight births, in addition to other outcomes, were found to be connected to petrochemical pollution in Cancer Alley and other heavily-industrialized parts of the state, including in predominately Black communities. That report featured a study that found a 25 percent higher risk of preterm birth in census tracts with the highest levels of air pollution compared to unpolluted tracts.Advocacy by environmental justice organizations made significant progress in fighting state and federal failures to adequately regulate industry and provide health information about petrochemical harms, but the Trump administration is rolling back crucial regulations including those that apply to pregnancy-harming pollutants like benzene, which is present in Cancer Alley.Everyone in the US should be concerned that these statistics might worsen further still.