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Prenatal care promotes health, saves money Editor’s note: The article ran Jan. 9 in The Post and Courier and is reprinted with permission. by Jonathan Maze Of The Post and Courier Staff Many doctors and health care experts believe better health care is ultimately cheaper. By spending money to prevent problems in the first place, patients won’t get complicated and expensive problems down the line.   Dr. Roger Newman, an obstetrician at the Medical University of South Carolina, will get about $480,000 from the state to prove that point.   The grant is roughly half the $1 million worth of Prevention Partnership grants South Carolina’s Medicaid agency awarded last week to efforts across the state that address a wide range of health issues, such as disease prevention and childhood obesity.   It’s part of $2 million worth of prevention efforts the General Assembly approved last year. Half of that total was earmarked toward efforts to combat AIDS. In his budget request last week, Gov. Mark Sanford proposed more than doubling the total number of prevention grants to $5 million next year.   Newman’s project looks to prevent premature babies in the Lowcountry, defined in this case as including the Charleston area plus Colleton, Georgetown, Beaufort, Jasper and Hampton counties. Newman believes the effort will save lives and reduce long-term health problems in babies born too early.   It could also save hundreds of thousands of dollars in Medicaid spending.   South Carolina has one of the worst rates of premature births in the country. It also has one of the highest rates of stillbirths. And both rates are higher among Medicaid patients.   Premature babies, particularly those with very low birth weights, can cost the health care system hundreds of thousands of dollars.   Many of these instances can be prevented, experts say, with better prenatal care that pregnant women on Medicaid often don’t receive.   Newman’s effort will try to find pregnant women on Medicaid to assess their risk for a very low birth weight baby.   The area has about 6,000 Medicaid deliveries a year, Newman said. He believes researchers can find 75 percent of them. About 20 percent, or 910, will be at an increased risk for pre-term delivery. Researchers hope to work with those patients’ physicians to get their care managed and provide therapy that is proven to reduce the risk for pre-term delivery.   Newman said his project’s goal is to reduce very low birth weight babies, who are born at less than 1,500 grams, and those born at 30 weeks. Another goal: to reduce the number of days Medicaid babies spend in the neonatal intensive care unit, which could save the system $2,000 a day.     Friday, Jan. 20, 2006 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community Press at 849-1778, ext. 201.