Utah reduces preemie births

While Utah received a better grade this year than last on its rate of premature births, it still gets only a "C" from the March of Dimes for work to reduce the number of babies born too early.

Officials released their second annual report card at a news conference Tuesday, noting 10.9 percent of all live births — some 6,000 Utah babies — were premature in 2008, putting them at greater risk for immediate and long-term health problems.

The majority of Utah's premature births occur in "late preterm"term births — that's where the majority of preterm births occur," said Dr. Bob Silver, chief of the division of maternal-fetal medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine.

"Many health systems have been implementing quality-improvement programs. These efforts have helped reduce early C-sections, as well as the rates of preterm birth. However, we can do even better," he said.

The "C" grade also came after a reduction in the number of childbearing-age women who smoke, as well as a reduction in the number of women that age who are uninsured.

Dr. David Sundwall, executive director of the Utah Department of Health, lauded state programs like Baby Your Baby, the Utah Birth Defects Network and the Pregnancy RiskLine, all of which seek to promote prenatal health and provide data to help prevent future birth defects.

"These are incredibly important and successful programs that really impact all Utahns," he said. "When babies are born too early, they can suffer medical problems that cost their families and the state dearly. So I'm very proud to see this improvement on our report card."

March of Dimes spokesman Stephen McDonald said only a small percentage of Utah preemies are born from 22 to 30 weeks gestation, and the rate of those births "has remained fairly constant over time," while the rate of late preterm births had been rising for more than a decade before dropping in the past year.

Hospital officials said that every day, the newborn intensive-care unit at University Hospital sees one or two new admissions, McDonald said, noting the emotional toll on families and the babies themselves is difficult to grasp, in addition to the costs the tiny patients incur.

The grades given by the March of Dimes are based on the federal government's "Healthy People 2010" goal that, by next year, no more than 7.6 percent of all live births should be premature. "This is based on how close states are to that goal," he said.Vermont was the only state to score a "B" in the March of Dimes study — the highest grade among the states in the report.term birth by the March of Dimes shows the U.S. and Canada follow only to Africa in the number of premature births each year. It said the rate of preterm birth in the U.S. has increased 36 percent in the past 25 years.

McDonald said a few of the possible reasons are: a rise in pregnancies in women over age 35; growing use of assisted reproductive technologies, leading to a higher number of twins and multiple births; and the rise in late preterm births "where women try to select a due date before the baby is full-term. That's not much of an option in other nations."

e-mail: carrie@desnews.com