The influence of the wider use of surfactant therapy on neonatal mortality among blacks and whites

Premature white babies appear to have benefitted more from surfactant therapy than premature black babies. Surfactant therapy was approved in 1990 to treat very-low-birth-weight babies with respiratory distress syndrome. After 1990, the mortality rate among these babies dropped 17%. However, the mortality rate among black babies remained the same while the rate in white babies dropped 41%. Black babies were just as likely to receive surfactant as white babies but they may have less need for it, since their lungs mature faster.