Hartford health insurer Aetna has announced a number of infant safety programs that encourage women, doctors and hospitals to limit electively scheduled deliveries until at least 39 weeks of pregnancy.
The initiative, which is being launched in collaboration with the March of Dimes, The Leapfrog Group and others, aims to prevent early pregnancies when they are not medically necessary.
“For every week prior to 39 weeks of pregnancy that a baby is delivered, the chance of having health and development problems that require care in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nearly doubles,” says Marjorie Schulman, a senior medical director at Aetna with 25 years experience as a NICU doctor. “We want to help our members and doctors avoid that unnecessary risk. It’s really a protective effort.”
The safety program includes:
- Reaching out to our pregnant members to let them know how important it is to give their babies the benefit of full gestation.
- Helping and encouraging hospitals to prevent earlier deliveries when they are not medically necessary for the mother or baby.
- Letting members know which hospitals have programs in place to avoid early electively scheduled deliveries.
Aetna officials said that in a scheduled delivery, labor does not begin on its own. Instead, the doctor and the patient schedule a date to induce labor or perform a caesarian section. The March of Dimes and professional societies, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), agree that deliveries should not be scheduled before 39 weeks unless there is a medical reason.
Despite this, the trend of electively scheduled deliveries is rising. New data released by The Leapfrog Group show that at some hospitals a third or more of all deliveries are scheduled before the mother has reached 39 weeks of pregnancy.
The March of Dimes, working together with doctors, hospitals and Aetna, has created a toolkit for hospitals to use to reduce scheduled deliveries before 39 weeks without medical reason. Aetna also has funded a March of Dimes program that is helping targeted hospitals nationwide adopt prevention policies.
