US hospitals continue to close work and distribution services

Increasingly, people who are born cannot rely on their nearest hospital who have specialized health care they need.

Researchers increased the losses and profits of work and distribution units near the 5,000 US hospitals from 2010 to 2022. Losses prevailed. More than half of rural hospitals and more than one -third of urban hospitals did not provide obstetric services in 2022, researchers report on December 4 Newspaper of the American Medical Association. This is worse than in 2010, when 43 percent of rural hospitals and 30 percent of urban hospitals lacked these services.

The cost of storing obstetric services, shortages of clinicians and work and distribution nurses and security are among the reasons that hospitals close units, says Katy Kozhimannin, a health policy researcher at the Minneapolis University of Minneapolis. But when a hospital decides that the risks of keeping an obstetric unit are very high, she says, those risks do not go away, but stay with people born (Sn: 3/16/23). “People will still have babies and the place where they can deliver simply goes further and farther.”

The lack of work and distribution services can damage the health of infants and mothers, have found studies. Kozhimannil and colleagues compared rural circles that lost hospital -based obstetric services with rural circuits that these services had. The farthest rural-Aato circles that were not near urban-with obstetric services based on hospital saw an increased risk of premature birth, the team reported in Newspaper of the American Medical Association In 2018. Premature birth is a leading cause of infant mortality.

Women living in Louisiana’s birth care deserts had a higher risk of pregnancy -related deaths than women who had more access to this care, a different group reported Women’s health issues In 2020. Maternity deserts describe circuits that have no hospitals that provide obstetric services or only one or not very few obstetric providers.

When a hospital in a rural area closes its obstetric unit, lactation support and breastfeeding, childbirth education classes, perinatal mental health services and postpartum support groups are less likely to be available , says Kozhimannil. “Half of all mother’s mortality occurs in the year after birth,” she says. “Ensuring that communities are well equipped to support people is essential.”