Extra Protection for High-Risk Mothers and Babies

Abstract

Extra Protection for High-Risk Mothers and Babies To assure a favorable pregnancy outcome for high-risk mothers and infants, good care during pregnancy is not enough. Medical centers are beginning to develop clinics to improve the health of high-risk patients between their pregnancies. When our intraparturn clinic was started at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 1965, it was among the first in the country. In 1965, a Maternal and Child Health grant enabled us to expand the services we had been offering to patients during periods of pregnancy and preconception. Now, as we begin to evaluate the project, statistics and patients' reactions begin to reflect its value. The majority of patients at our hospital are from a low economic group, a group who all too frequently do not secure adequate care. Inadequate care often results in prematurity and untreated complications of pregnancy. The result is maternal morbidity and infants with a whole spectrum of disorders including mental retardation. Before our project began, the medically indigent in the Omaha area had no specific resource for maternity care. The university hospital depended on state legislative appropriations to finance care and had to adopt an ability-to-pay schedule. While the schedule was in many respects liberal, total advance payment for clinic and hospital care was required. This discouraged