Extra financial support during pregnancy and after birth can help more babies thrive in their earliest days.

The Rx Kids program in Flint, Mich., launched in January 2024, provides extra cash to pregnant residents and their infants, unconditionally. Researchers compared neonatal deaths — those in the first four weeks of life — in 2025 with those in 2021 through 2024 in Flint. The city’s neonatal mortality rate dropped from 10 deaths per 1,000 live births to 5 deaths per 1,000 live births, researchers report November 2 in JAMA Pediatrics . The early neonatal mortality rate, covering deaths in the first week of life, fell from 8 per 1,000 to 2. For the rest of Michigan, rates were stable over the study’s time period.

“As a pediatrician, there is no outcome more important than babies surviving,” says Mona Hanna of the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine in Flint, who is also the founder and director of Rx Kids.…