Milwaukee has an infant mortality rate higher than nearly every other city in the nation, and city health officials are now turning to Baltimore for a fix. The Milwaukee Health Department plans to incorporate elements of Baltimore's B'more for Healthy Babies program into a new maternal and child health strategic plan, hoping to replicate a model credited with a 35% decrease in infant deaths in that city.
The move comes as Milwaukee grapples with disproportionately high infant mortality among Black babies, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Statewide, the disparity is stark: Wisconsin Department of Health Services vital records for 2024 showed a non-Hispanic Black infant mortality rate of 12.5 deaths per 1,000 live births compared to 4.8 for white infants, meaning Black infants in Wisconsin die at more than 2.5 times the rate of white infants. Nationally, the CDC reported the U.S. infant mortality rate was 5.52 per 1,000 live births in 2024.
Why Milwaukee Is Rebuilding From Scratch
Milwaukee Health Commissioner Mike Totoraitis said the city should focus on improving prenatal care, which can include regular doctors' visits, nutrition counseling and mental health support — all of which can reduce adverse birth outcomes. Totoraitis wants Milwaukee to lead in infant mortality reduction and to close the Black-white gap in infant deaths, and he said infant-death data is critical for driving change and holding partners accountable. The City of Milwaukee Health Department says racial disparities in infant mortality persist even after education and income are taken into account.
The push comes at a fraught moment for the city's existing prenatal care infrastructure. Between March and July 2026, federal judges in Milwaukee sentenced multiple former operators of Milwaukee-area prenatal care coordination companies to prison terms ranging from five to ten years, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, after the companies defrauded millions of dollars from a Wisconsin Medicaid benefit meant for at-risk pregnant women. Hoodline previously reported on a $4.3 million Medicaid scam tied to the same wave of prosecutions, which followed an earlier indictment against a Milwaukee woman accused in a separate multimillion-dollar scheme.
Milwaukee Is Also Reviving Its Death-Review Program
Alongside the strategic plan, the Milwaukee Health Department is rebuilding its Fetal and Infant Mortality Review program, which examines the circumstances of every infant death case by case. Totoraitis said Milwaukee has not fully utilized the program the way Baltimore has, and Milwaukee's last published review came out in December 2021, examining infant deaths from 2016 to 2018. According to the City of Milwaukee Health Department, its Fetal and Infant Mortality Review program examines infant deaths and stillbirths through multidisciplinary review.
Deputy Commissioner Lori Plahmer, who leads the health department's family and community health division, visited Baltimore last month to observe the partnerships supporting B'more for Healthy Babies. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Baltimore program is split into a steering committee, an implementation team and a community advisory board, which was added in 2017 to collect resident feedback and expertise.
What Baltimore Actually Built
When Baltimore launched B'more for Healthy Babies in 2009, the city's overall infant mortality rate stood at 13.5 deaths per 1,000 live births, and Black infants were five times more likely to die than white infants, according to the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs. By 2021, that rate had dropped to a historic low of 7.5 deaths per 1,000 live births — a nearly 44% decline — while the gap between Black and white infant deaths narrowed by more than half, per data from Baltimore's Promise. The program now has more than 150 public, private and community partners, including public health workers, hospitals, doctors, social services, midwives and churches, and it uses shared branding while focusing targeted support for pregnancy, parenting and breastfeeding on select neighborhoods with the highest infant mortality rates.
Rebecca Dineen, assistant commissioner for the Baltimore City Health Department's maternal and child health bureau, said the program achieved progress by maintaining a shared goal across its many partners. Baltimore has also used safe-sleep campaigns, including “Sleep Safe” videos. Maryland's structure allowed its health department to manage grants directly, and the state's grant contracts required stakeholders to collaborate rather than operate in isolation.
Money Remains an Open Question
Dineen also cautioned that maintaining maternal and child health as a financial priority is challenging, and she said the work requires dedicated funding. Baltimore's program is funded through existing federal, state and local health department dollars, and the city's FY2026 municipal budget added another $1 million to the initiative as part of a $634.4 million youth-focused funding package serving more than 10,000 local families — a budget Hoodline covered when Mayor Scott signed the FY2026 spending plan. It's not yet clear whether Milwaukee will pursue a similar dedicated funding stream of its own.
Totoraitis said maternal and child health outcomes can take years to achieve, and he plans to use technology to simplify referrals to prenatal services as part of Milwaukee's approach. He also wants more partners across the city to participate in the effort to reduce infant deaths. The relationship between the two cities isn't entirely new — Baltimore health department staff actually visited Milwaukee in 2008 to learn from its teen pregnancy prevention program, years before Milwaukee began looking to Baltimore for answers on infant survival.
The Root Causes Milwaukee Is Targeting
City data shows prematurity and low birth weight account for nearly 56% of infant deaths in Milwaukee, followed by congenital abnormalities at over 20% and unsafe sleep or SIDS/SUDI at nearly 15%, according to the City of Milwaukee Health Department. Those categories are shaping why expanding prenatal care access and safe-sleep education have become central pillars of the city's strategy going forward.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study of 7,595 sudden unexpected infant death cases found that 59.5% involved sleep-surface sharing when the deaths occurred, underscoring the relevance of safe-sleep education. Preterm birth and infant mortality remain important public-health concerns in the United States.
The stakes extend beyond Milwaukee's city limits. Wisconsin's stark racial disparity in infant mortality is a reminder that Milwaukee is working to rebuild trust in its prenatal care system and close a gap that has persisted for years.
