Iowa ranked among best states to raise kids

Iowa is the sixth-best state for children to live according to the latest Kids Count study released today by the Anne E. Casey Foundation.

The 21-year-old examination of nationwide child living conditions found that Iowa's statistics improved in many areas during the 2007-2008 study period, compared with the results of the 2000 study. Areas in which the state improved include the teen birth rate and the infant, child and teen death rate.

The news was welcome, but not surprising, to Michael Crawford, director of Iowa Kids Count for the Child Health and Policy Center in Des Moines.

“Iowa's done very well for all 21 years. We're usually in the top ten,” he said.

Iowa ranked as best in the nation in two areas: percent of teens not in school and not high school graduates, and percent of teens not attending school and not working. Crawford credited this ranking to Iowa's traditionally strong work ethic.

“Kids understand that when they're in school, they need to stay and go on to college and get a good job. But when they're not, they understand they need to work to survive,” Crawford said.

The percent of children in single-parent families and the percent of children in poverty remained the same from 2007 to 2008 at 13 and 25 percent, respectively, but both still are 8 percent higher than in 2000. Linn County Youth Services Director Jeff Lindeman said he feels local children did have a harder time during the period covered by the survey, due to the combination of the nation's economic downturn and the flooding in Eastern Iowa in 2008.

“Certainly with the economic situation and certainly the flood issue of 2008, we've seen there's been more children in poverty situations,” Lindeman said.

One negative trend on the survey for Iowa was an increase in the percent of low birthweight babies, rising from 6.1 percent in 2000 to 6.8 percent in 2007. The increase mirrors a national trend from 7.6 to 8.2 percent during the same time period.

Dr. Michael Acarregui, an Iowa City neonatologist who is the director of Iowa's Statewide Perinatal Care Program, said that a large contributor to low birthweight is premature births caused by mothers who smoke.

“Smoking is a big contributor to both prematurity and low birthweight,” Acarregui said. “We know that among our Medicaid support of mothers, the incidence of smoking is very high. It's over 30 percent.”

Another cause of low birthweight are early Caesarean section births, but Acarregui said that the state has come a long way in eliminating non-medically required Caesarean sections.

Despite the increases, Acarregui notes that Iowa's statewide rankings in Kids Count still are among the highest in the country.

“When you look at how we're doing, we're doing incredibly well. When you see swings like these, it doesn't take that big a difference in the number of deaths to make that big a change,” he said.