Limos, Lerry Claire May 12, 2022

Delivery Room Group 3A – BSN 201

The Effects Of Prenatal Care Upon The Health Of The Newborn.

Data upon all births and infant deaths in New York City in 1968 are analyzed using methods for
the analysis of multidimensional contingency tables. These methods provide estimates of the
effect of variations in prenatal care upon the relative risks of low birth weight and neonatal and
postneonatal mortality, controlling for a wide variety of factors which tend to "select" women
into a program of prenatal care. Significant relationships between lack of prenatal care and infant
mortality are estimated, but these occur mainly via the relationship of inadequate prenatal care to
low birth weight. Furthermore, among white mothers who delivered on a private service, those
receiving inadequate levels of prenatal care experienced only slightly increased risks of a low
birth weight infant. In contrast, white mothers who delivered on a general service, and all black
mothers, experienced substantially increased risks when receiving inadequate prenatal care. A
variety of behavioral characteristics of mothers were not controlled in these analyses, and thus
clear causal inferences concerning the efficacy of prenatal care cannot be drawn. These analyses
do, however, identify a significant population of women at substantial risk.

Journal

Prenatal care is where pregnancy is being checked-up by health professionals to monitor the
health and condition of the mother and the child. Prenatal care is associated with lowering fetal
abnormalities, preterm births, low-birth weights and was later on recognized to lower the number
of fetal and maternal deaths. The effectiveness of prenatal care is assessed by the timing and
frequency of visits adjusted for gestational age and the site but was later on disagreed upon as to
the site (Public vs. Public) as a measure of quality of care. It was later suggested that the
association of low birth weight and the number of prenatal visits might be correlated to the
trimester or the time when the mother had prenatal care (Shwartz, 1962) According to statistics,
the observation of women who had gained prenatal care as they are approaching full term had
significantly lower risk of having low birth weight as to compare to women who have prenatal
care early. Getting prenatal care on the first trimester has a 0.94% risk of having low birth
weights; 2nd trimester has a percentage of 1.02% while women who had prenatal care on their
third trimester has a much lower risk of having low birth weight with a percentage of 0.32% and
women who had no prenatal care throughout the pregnancy has a much higher risk of giving
birth to a low-birth weight child with a percentage of 6.14%. The relationship between the
adequacy or frequency of prenatal care and low birth weight is significant, it is observed that
women who adequately have prenatal care has the lowest risk of having a baby small for their
gestational age as evidenced by having a percentage of 5.06% according to National Center for
Health Statistics while those who do not get prenatal care are most at risk with the percentage of
21.06. This goes to show that the percentage of low birthweight births decreases with increasing
adequacy of prenatal care use. This is to ensure that the health of the mother and the child are at
optimum level to prevent complications with the pregnancy. But then these components have
later on identified as being biased and unethical because there are a lot of factors to consider
such as their socioeconomic status, age, ethnicity, their conception of health and the quality of
the prenatal care provider system. With this age of technological advancements, not only prenatal
care are used as a procedure in preventing fetal and maternal deaths but this have allowed for the
earlier detection of a fetus that is failing to thrive and, in some cases, have lead to the earlier
therapeutic interruption of pregnancy in order to reduce the risk of fetal death, particularly in
twins. Moreover, better monitoring of the client’s pregnancy can lead to a timely intervention if
complications occur.