Maternity-care failings can be remedied with cost-saving fixes
Back to basics for safer childbirth
Too many doctors and hospitals are overusing high-tech procedures
Milbank Report: Evidence-Based Maternity Care
Go straight to the report
Some straight talk pulled from the report:
Hospital charges for birthing women and newborns excedes ANY other condition.
The average charges for birthing in a hospital range from $7000-$16,000 for a normal vaginal delivery to a complicated c-section.
The average cost for out of hospital birthing centers are around $1624.
Adverse effects of epidurals: immobility, voiding difficulty, sedation, fever, hypotension, itching, longer pushing stages, serious perinial tears. To the baby: rapid heart beat, hyperbilirubinemia, inreased workup for sepsis, and administration of antiobiotics. Many of these things then lead directly to c-sections.
