By Emily Webb
While there are various efforts in Georgia aimed at reducing the risk of death and other adverse events among new moms and their babies, there’s still a long way to go, noted speakers at the seventh State of the Public’s Health Conference at the University of Georgia.
During a session at the Oct. 18 event in Athens, experts from The March of Dimes, Healthcare Georgia Foundation and UGA’s College of Public Health painted a grim picture of how well issues like maternal and infant deaths, preterm births and access to prenatal care are addressed statewide.
“We have a major challenge,” said UGA public health professor José F. Cordero, during a session on promoting healthy starts for mothers and infants. He and others highlighted some of the statistics they find most alarming.
For example, at 7.5 deaths per 1,000 live births, the Peach State ranked among the top ten worst in the country on infant mortality rates— which refers to how frequently a child dies before reaching his or her first birthday. That’s according to 2016 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nationally, the average rate was 5.9 deaths per 1,000 live births.
Georgia also has the highest maternal mortality rate in the U.S., at 46.2 deaths per 100,000 births, according to the 2018 Health of Women and Children Report from America’s Health Rankings, an organization that provides health-related data for policymakers, advocates and individuals.
Likewise, there is concern when a baby is born before 37 weeks of pregnancy, or preterm. In fact, a report released by the March of Dimes one week after the conference found a slight increase in preterm births over the past year, rising from 11.2 percent to 11.4 percent.
The report reiterated that more work needs to be done. But health care workers continue to face several challenges addressing these problems, and one of the biggest issues is access to care, panelists said.
“High rates of preterm births in areas of the South are related to a separate issue, poor access to prenatal care,” Cordero explained. “These are the same areas [where] there are major limitations in access to obstetricians and midwives,” he said.
Access to proper pre- and postnatal care may also be limited due to lack of health insurance coverage. An estimated 19.4 percent of women in Georgia between the ages of 18 and 44 are uninsured, according to 2018 data from the America’s Health Rankings’ report on the health of women and children.
To turn things around, perhaps the state could benefit from more diverse approaches.
“Public health is not a one size fit all,” said Danielle Brown, director of maternal and child health at the greater Atlanta-area March of Dimes.
As an example, she discussed the March of Dimes’ implementation of a program called the Prematurity Prevention Workgroup, a group of healthcare and medical professionals that join together to offer prenatal care and education, and address disparities in priority areas in the state, among other efforts. The workgroups, originally launched in Savannah, bring pregnant women together in a group with providers to discuss labor, infant care, family planning and postpartum care.
“We wanted to develop a program that was a little more flexible,” Brown said, noting that the program serves a dual purpose. When moms bring their infants for regular checkups, the clinicians will also turn their focus to the issues the mother’s may be facing.
In another example of efforts underway, Andrea Kellum, a senior program officer at Healthcare Georgia Foundation, discussed Taking Care of You. The evidence-based program works to reduce adverse birth outcomes, like preterm births, sleep-related deaths and babies born with low birth weights through targeted community interventions.
Still, panelists agreed more work could be done, a message that was reinforced by the March of Dimes’ president, Stacey Stewart, in an announcement about the new report on preterm pregnancies.
“We must all come together to take concrete, common sense steps to reverse this alarming trend,” Stewart said. “By expanding proven programs and innovative solutions we can shift our healthcare system to improve treatment and preventive care for moms and lower the preterm birth rate. Birth equity is our goal; it can be reached.”
