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Preterm Birth Rates Improve in Most States

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    Improvement due to a variety of health interventions

  • Duration 3:39
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Very -- -- all right got to fight against premature childbirth continues on in this country -- the US has improved to an overall grade now of -- C.

In preventing preterm births there is still a lot of work to do.

-- -- at the medical director of the March of Dimes foundation doctor Alan Fleischman good to see this morning doctor.

Good morning -- so we've been doing these ratings with you -- the last couple of years we've improved to come up to a C what have we done right.

Well the good news is that -- two thirds of the states are proving we've given that.

US AC.

I think mostly we see that -- increasing access to care for women.

Smoking history is decreasing across the country in most states are creating smoking cessation programs.

And I think most importantly we're deep -- -- those unnecessary.

Elective caesarean deliveries and early induction.

It's right now the thinking is people want to know how their state Baird and only one state got an eight let's go ahead and show the map Vermont it's an -- Sixteen states get a -- nineteen states get a -- eleven states and Washington DC get a DU.

And and three sold -- asked.

Along with Puerto Rico why do those three states there at Louisiana Mississippi Alabama and Puerto Rico get apps.

Well I think they can learn from the states are doing better I mean.

We need universal access to health insurance and good quality healthcare for all women of childbearing age women need to start.

With healthy.

Women before they get pregnant so we.

And in those states that do poorly.

We see a large amount of obesity a large amount of smoking some drinking and things that states can do something about.

And the interesting thing is is that one of every eight babies now born in the United States is born prematurely and in this industrialized technological environment that we -- -- You would think that we would be able to combat this problem and get 50% of all the preterm births we don't know why right.

Well I think that's right but we do know a lot of good things I mean if you've had a premature baby there's now treatment to prevent recurrence.

If a woman is found to have a short cervix the opening -- uterus being too short there's now treatment to help those women.

And of course there is the whole story about making sure that every pregnancy goes to 39 weeks unless there's a medical indication to ended early.

Right and from my work with the March of -- I've learned how important it is to trying -- two full -- -- so many women in this country who believe that 3637.

Weeks is just fine.

And there's still a lot of development for that -- beyond that I wanna get to one last thing -- That the March of Dimes has a two million dollar grant in conjunction now with Stanford University what are you gonna try to do at Stamford.

What we know that premature -- and extremely complex.

Disorder.

And in order to truly understand all of the causes we need what we call trans disciplinary research.

We need to bring engineers and informatics experts in social scientists together with the geneticists in the molecular scientist.

And it's Stanford we have a ten year commitment to developing a -- and stays -- -- research center.

To prevent premature ready to understand -- maturity and it's our goal at the March of Dimes to create more of these centers around the country to make a real different.

It's all right the continued success of the March of Dimes and proud to be associated with your organization doctor Alan -- good to see this morning.

Thank you Gretchen.

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