Firms Seek Cuts in Costs Arising From Births : Benefits: To help women employees bear healthy babies, employers are sponsoring prenatal classes and encouraging early doctor visits.

Haggar Apparel Co. is using some new weapons in its fight against rising pregnancy-related medical costs, including work-place prenatal education, a change in the company insurance plan and free infant car seats.

In recent years, officials of the Dallas-based men’s clothing manufacturer have sought to offset costs associated with premature births or births of unhealthy babies.

Such expenses can be staggering. One Fortune 100 company in the New York area found in 1988 that the average hospital charge alone for a sick newborn of an employee was $21,000, compared to $700 for a healthy baby, according to the Conference Board, a New York-based business research organization.

“Childbirth-related expenses are one of the largest single components in health-care costs,” said Irene McKirgan, director of health promotion programs for the March of Dimes. “All you need is one unhealthy birth, and it can have a devastating effect on the company’s bottom line. It’s not uncommon for a company to have a million-dollar baby.”

One key to combating the problem is making sure that expectant mothers seek early medical care and are informed about such basic health precautions as refraining from drinking alcohol or smoking while pregnant. Haggar, which has a large female work force, opted not only to educate employees about the do’s and don’t’s of pregnancy, but also to find ways to encourage women--some of whom wait until the seventh month of pregnancy to make a first visit to a doctor--to seek first-trimester medical care.

Earlier this year, Haggar introduced “Babies and You,” prenatal-care classes that the March of Dimes offers at corporate work sites. As an incentive to attend classes, Haggar offered expectant mothers free baby car seats.

The classes, in English and Spanish--to accommodate a large Spanish-speaking segment of the work force--came on the heels of another innovation. Last year, the company changed its insurance plan so mothers wouldn’t have to wait until they delivered to be reimbursed for pregnancy-related medical expenses. Now, it makes up-front payments to the doctor for any woman who seeks medical care in the first three months of pregnancy.

The result? A 22% decline in premature or unhealthy babies born to employees in the past year, said Mark Robinson, manager of Haggar’s wellness program.

Haggar joins a handful of companies that are also looking at financial incentives to get appropriate medical care for expectant mothers, according to McKirgan of the March of Dimes. Among them are First National Bank of Chicago. It waives the $225 deductible on health insurance expenses in the first year of a newborn’s life if the baby’s mother has gone through the “Babies and You” program.

All told, about 270 corporations participate in the March of Dimes prenatal-classes program.