MedStar Washington (D.C.) Hospital Center is closing the gap on maternal and infant health disparities with a new program, The Washington Post reported Jan. 21.
Black birthing people in the district account for about half of births, but 90% of pregnancy-related deaths, according to a CMS maternal mortality review committee. Black mothers were less likely to enter prenatal care in the first trimester and twice as likely to have a baby with low birth rate, health department data found.
"A lot of people have tried to crack the nut on disparities and it hasn't moved, but to actually see movement, we're very proud of that," said Angela Thomas, vice president of health-care delivery research at MedStar Health and lead author of a case study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, told the Post.
The Safe Babies Safe Moms program devotes equal attention to patients' medical and social needs. The program, funded by a $27 million grant and $3 million investment from the hospital, launched in 2020. It consists of 70 interventions available to patients during pregnancy and until their child turns 3 years old. Services include behavioral health screening and counseling, breastfeeding support, remote monitoring of blood pressure, and access to food, housing, legal and transportation assistance.
Tamika Auguste, head of women and infant services at the hospital, called the approach "a game changer."
"This is the way you do prenatal care and you take care of patients," she told the Post. "It is making sure that as healthcare providers, not just physicians, [but also] midwives, nurse practitioners, our nurses, all of us together, making sure that we really understood where our patients came from."
The results speak for themselves. Black patients in the program are less likely to have babies with very low or low birth weight (born under 3.3 pounds or 5.5 pounds before 37 weeks), than Black or white patients who received prenatal care at other facilities.
The MedStar program has helped 13,700 births over four years. It plans to expand to six other MedStar facilities in the district and Maryland.