Potential Benefits of Increased Access to Doula Support During Childbirth

© Managed Care & Healthcare Communications, LLC F our million infants are born each year in the United States, and the associated healthcare costs are substantial. In 2009, 7.6% of all hospital costs were attributable to maternity and newborn care, totaling over $27 billion.1 Almost half of childbirth-related hospital stays (47%) were covered by private health insurance; 45% of stays were billed to Medicaid programs.1 Maternity and newborn care is the top expenditure category for payments made to hospitals by both public payers and private health insurance companies.2 The average total costs of maternity (prenatal, labor and delivery, and postpartum) and newborn care for commercial payers was $27,866 for a cesarean delivery and $18,329 for a vaginal delivery in 2009.3 While payments by Medicaid programs were less overall, cesareans remain about 50% more costly than vaginal deliveries, at $13,590 for a cesarean delivery and $9131 for a vaginal delivery.3 Ensuring access to evidence-based, high-value care during childbirth is a clinical and financial imperative for healthcare providers, healthcare delivery systems, and health insurers. A growing evidence base suggests that continuous labor support confers measurable clinical benefits to both mother and baby.4-6 Continuous labor support is the care, guidance, and encouragement provided by those who are with a pregnant woman in labor that aims to support labor physiology and mothers’ feelings of control and participation in decision making during childbirth.4 In a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials, women who received continuous labor support reported greater satisfaction,7,8 had higher rates of spontaneous vaginal birth,9-11 higher infant Apgar scores,8 shorter labors,7,8 and lower rates of regional anesthesia (eg, epidural labor),12 cesarean deliveries,7,12 and forceps or vacuum deliveries.4,11,13 While many different individuals can and commonly do provide continuous labor support (including obstetric nurses, husbands and partners, close friends, and family members), the strongest results were achieved when Potential Benefits of Increased Access to Doula Support During Childbirth