Proven Clinical Outcomes & Efficacy

Challenging Conventional Wisdom 

The current structure of pregnancy care began with the issuance of the IOM study in 1985, which called for increased prenatal visits as a mechanism to reduce low birth weight. Yet 35 years later, though the number of visits has increased, the rate of low birth weight babies has not decreased. Furthermore, the rising rates of maternal mortality and morbidity in the US manifest the inadequacy of current structures of care to protect mothers, especially the minority and low-income women who comprise the majority of these statistics. 

A Changing Landscape

What's the key takeaway? In most developed countries, the reduced frequency of visits did not show a statistically significant difference in maternal and fetal outcomes.

However, a reduction in visits could potentially impact patient satisfaction and Provider-patient intimacy. Several programs have been created to augment a reduced visit schedule to maintain or increase patient satisfaction for low-risk pregnancies. These programs include group prenatal care (or Centering), which uses physician helpers in group prenatal care for low-risk patients, and OB Nest program implemented at the Mayo Clinic.

An additional review of alternative schedules can be found in a control study found here, as well as a study conducted by Kaiser.