The study analyzed data on elective deliveries occurring between 2010 and 2012 provided by 22 participating states in a perinatal project led by state Medicaid medical directors.
The study population from the 22 states consisted of 839,688 Medicaid singleton births from the most recent year for which data were available, which was 2011 for most states. Of these, 270,878 (32.3 percent) were elective deliveries, and 75,131 (8.9 percent) were early elective deliveries. Early elective deliveries among Medicaid patients varied by state, with a range of 2.8 percent to 13.7 percent. Elective cesarean deliveries were more common than elective labor inductions for early births.
Based on their analyses, researchers estimate that there are 160,000 early elective Medicaid deliveries nationwide each year.
Twelve states contributed trend data to the study, which showed the rates of early elective deliveries fell from 11.4 percent of all Medicaid singleton births in 2007 to 8.2 percent in 2011, a decline of 32 percent. During the same time period, the percentage of full-term singleton deliveries increased from 59.9 percent to 64.9 percent.
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