Low Birth Weight essays

Low Birth Weight essays The cost of LBW deliveries is also staggering. Henderson (1994) hypothesized that $285 million in hospital charges in the United States could be saved if prenatal care was utilized to prevent low birth weight. These moneys could be channeled into prevention and care programs for high risk women if the number of LBW delivered could be reduced. This could profoundly affect low-income women, who are at great risk for delivering low-birth-weight babies because they do not receive adequate prenatal care. In addition to the cost of caring for LBW babies after delivery through neonatal intensive care, there is also an immeasurable cost to the quality of life. Many low-birth-weight and preterm babies suffer from developmental problems, retardation, or both, which can influence clinical and educational outcomes. Hack et al. (1995) reported that infants and children who were born with LBW have higher incident rates of neuro-sensory, cognitive, neuropsychological, behavioral and social, academic, and health problems. Each problem is compounded by the others to make growing up very According to the Centers for Disease Control statistics, LBW births continue to be a preventable national problem. During the past decade, the overall number of pregnancies in the United States dropped 7 %. There were 6.28 million U.S. pregnancies in 1999 compared to 6.78 million overall pregnancies in 1990. The 1999 total pregnancy count includes about 3.96 million live births, 1.31 million induced abortions, and 1 million fetal losses from miscarriages and stillbirths. During the same time from 1990 to 1999, there was a 9-percent decline in the birth rate (based on births per 1000 women) and a 22-percent drop in the abortion rate. Overall statistics recorded a 12 percent decline in the However, for teens and minority women, the numbers are strikingly disproportionate. The 1999 pregnan...