Can It Be? Something’s Working? : Strenuous L.A. County efforts appear to be reducing infant mortality rates

A sharp drop in infant mortality provides hopeful news for many families and for overburdened public- health providers. If recently released statistics are to be believed, fewer babies in the Los Angeles area are dying before their first birthday. Something is working.

Medical experts attribute the 13% decline to an expansion of prenatal care for poor women. Spending on those services nearly doubled--from $150 million to $270 million--during the last five years in Los Angeles County.

How was the money spent? To compensate for overcrowded public maternity wards, the county signed agreements with private hospitals. That step ended waits as long as four months for an initial prenatal examination at a public facility.

To attract more doctors to public service, Medi-Cal payments were boosted by $100 per delivery and malpractice claims were covered. The county also used state tobacco tax money to increase payments to anesthesiologists and pediatricians. Those efforts allowed more women to seek medical attention early in their pregnancies.

Before the county’s admirable campaign to bring down infant mortality, the death rate was 9.2 per 1,000 live births; the new numbers are 8 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Despite that noteworthy improvement, the rate remains too high. Remedies must include greater efforts to reduce drug and alcohol abuse and an increase in the availability of prenatal care.

Doctors seeing expectant mothers early--and often--can reduce premature births, prevent risky low birth weights and avert other health problems that could jeopardize a baby.

Preventive medicine costs a fraction of the expense of care for an extremely premature or severely ill baby. Los Angeles County has made more of that care available to pregnant women. That public investment is paying off with thousands of healthy babies.