Saturday, December 27, 2008

Midwives Deliver Better Birth Care

t-shirt-midwife-helped

The LA Times recently ran an article about what expanded midwifery care could do for the US.  In addition to the overwhelming health benefits for mothers and babies, there are equally overwhelming economic benfits.

Some excerpts:
Not only is childbirth the most common reason for a hospital stay -- more than 4 million American women give birth each year -- it costs the country far more than any other health condition. Six of the 15 most frequent hospital procedures billed to private insurers and Medicaid are maternity-related. The nation's maternity bill totaled $86 billion in 2006, nearly half of which was picked up by taxpayers.
But cost hasn't translated into quality. We spend more than double per capita on childbirth than other industrialized countries, yet our rates of pre-term birth, newborn death and maternal death rank us dismally in comparison...   The U.S. ranks 41st among industrialized nations in maternal mortality. (Emphasis mine.)
The most cost-effective, health-promoting maternity care for normal, healthy women is midwife led and out of hospital... This model of care is not just cheaper; decades of medical research show that it's better. Mother and baby are more likely to have a normal, vaginal birth; less likely to experience trauma, such as a bad vaginal tear or a surgical delivery; and more likely to breast feed. In other words, less is actually more.
To be frank, the U.S. maternity care system needs to be turned upside down. Midwives should be caring for the majority of pregnant women, and physicians should continue to handle high-risk cases, complications and emergencies. This is the division of labor, so to speak, that you find in the countries that spend less but get more.

Click here to read the entire story.

No comments:

Post a Comment