title: Risk, antepartum care, and outcome: impact of a maternity and infant care project.
abstract: A Title V Maternity and Infant Care (M&I) Project has been operating from Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital for more than 13 years. To evaluate the effectiveness of its program of antepartum care, social and medical-obstetric risk factors and perinatal outcome were evaluated for pregnant women delivered during a 2-year period. After the potential biases of patient referral and failure to obtain antepartum care were excluded, patients who received either M&I or non-M&I care were compared. Despite the similar social and antepartum/intrapartum risk of these groups, the M&I patients experienced 60% less perinatal mortality than the non-M&I group (P less than .0001). These results suggest that M&I antepartum care is of considerable value, possibly ameliorating the risks for preterm delivery. M&I patients receive more patient education, nutrition counseling, social service assessment and intervention, special services for adolescents, and delinquent appointment follow-up. Thus, this study further suggests that these components of antepartum care may be important in producing the observed improvement in fetal-infant outcome.
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D005313:Fetal Death / Q000453:epidemiology; D005328:Fetal Viability; D006268:Health Facilities / Q000592:standards*; D006746:Hospital Bed Capacity, 500 and over; D006773:Hospitals, Municipal; D006801:Humans; D008430:Maternal-Child Health Centers / Q000592:standards*; D007752:Obstetric Labor, Premature / Q000453:epidemiology; D009820:Ohio; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications; D011295:Prenatal Care; D012306:Risk; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors