• We have two new publications related to births. The Census Study released on May 17 - available at  http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/population/cb12-90.html - tells us that a majority of newborn Americans are minorities.
• While there is a certain appeal to making a pun or two on this topic, I'll bypass the pleasure of developing an Abbott and Costello routine.  Statistically, and with the definitions of minorities, we've seen this one coming.
• The second publication is the Center for Disease Control's release "Infant Mortality Statistics from the 2008 Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set."   This document is available at: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_05.pdf .
• Among other observations that we can extrapolate to South Dakota is the statement "Infant mortality rates vary with maternal age; in 2008 infants of teenage mothers (9.59) and mothers aged 40 and over (8.07) had the highest rates. 
• The lowest rates were for infants of mothers in their late twenties and early thirties" on page 13.
• Mike McCurry, Ph.D.