The overall rate of premature births in the United States has fallen significantly in recent years, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association(JAMA).
The drop was associated, the study found, with a concurrent decrease in the rate of physician-initiated obstetric interventions — specifically, induced labor and Caesarean deliveries.
These findings suggest that efforts to get U.S. obstetricians to reduce medically unnecessary early births are working.
“This is great. I was so excited to see this,” said Katy Kozhimannil, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health who was not involved with the JAMA study, but whose own research has focused on the impact of health policy on reproductive-aged women and their families. “It really shows how our system can change, and how obstetricians are responsive to new information.”
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