(Press-News.org) Philadelphia, PA, November 24, 2014 - Pregnant women with diabetes are at an increased risk for many adverse birth outcomes. Preconception care (PCC) can significantly lower these risks by helping pregnant mothers with diabetes control their glucose levels, resulting in healthier babies and less money spent on complicated deliveries and lifelong medical complications. Effective, universal PCC for diabetic mothers could avert an estimated $5.5 billion in health expenditures and lost employment productivity over affected children's lifetimes, according to a new study published in the latest issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Diabetes in pregnant women has been linked to significant complications such as preterm deliveries, birth defects, and even perinatal deaths; however, access to PCC can mitigate the frequency of these outcomes by improving glucose levels before and during the early stages of pregnancy. As well as being detrimental to the health and wellbeing of both mother and child, these diabetes-related complications represent a sizeable cost to healthcare payers and society.
A team of health economists and researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) investigated the savings that PCC could potentially generate by helping to avoid adverse birth outcomes. The study estimated that 2.2% of all U.S. births are to women with pre-existing diabetes, or pregestational diabetes mellitus (PGDM), some without a diabetes diagnosis before pregnancy. The study found that among pregnant women with diagnosed diabetes, effective PCC could avert $4.3 billion in costs to healthcare payers and society over their children's' lifetimes. Effective PCC among pregnant women with undiagnosed diabetes could potentially save an additional $1.2 billion, totaling $5.5 billion in averted costs.
"We estimated thousands of adverse birth outcomes might be prevented each year among U.S. women with PGDM through universal PCC at an estimated lifetime societal cost savings of up to $5.5 billion, including nearly $1 billion in direct medical costs," says lead investigator Cora Peterson, PhD, from the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. "Our results suggest a substantial health and cost burden associated with PGDM that could be prevented by universal PCC, which might offset the cost of providing such care."
Along with avoiding unnecessary costs, universal PCC would also help avoid critical birth complications. The study estimates that PCC might avert 8,397 preterm deliveries, 3,725 birth defects, and 1,872 perinatal deaths annually.
"The preconception period is critical for preventing adverse birth outcomes in women with PGDM. By some estimates, nearly half of U.S. pregnancies, including pregnancies among women with PGDM, are unplanned," comments Dr. Peterson. "To prevent adverse birth outcomes among women with undiagnosed diabetes, diagnosis in the preconception period is needed; the first step would be screening women of reproductive age to identify those with undiagnosed diabetes."
While PCC can help diagnose and manage PGDM, there are costs to mothers associated with obtaining proper care and treatment. Access to affordable healthcare and insurance is a challenge for many women across the U.S. Investigators based their economic assessment on the idea that PCC would be widely available and utilized by women, although they were not able to include the cost of obtaining care nor the cost of PCC in their calculations. "Our estimates indicate the potential economic benefit of PCC if it were to be fully utilized by eligible women," explains Dr. Peterson. "It is possible that lack of insurance coverage might disproportionately affect women with both unintended pregnancies and undiagnosed PGDM, creating a substantial cost barrier to PCC for such women."
While there are still many unanswered questions, this new study shines a light on the economic importance of identifying women with PGDM and why providing universal PCC may pay for itself going forward. Commenting on this study, noted expert in the field Kim Boggess, MD, Professor, Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine at the UNC School of Medicine notes, "While PCC for women with PGDM can avert adverse outcomes and save money, what should the content of this care be and how do we provide it for all women? Who pays for it? Despite these limitations the results [of this study] suggest that the PCC-preventable health and cost burdens associated with PGDM are substantial. Thus innovated researcher is needed to assess the costs and practicality of delivering this care."
INFORMATION:
This news release is available in German.
X-ray flashes are a unique scientific tool. They are generated by accelerating electrons to very high energy levels in kilometer-long vacuum tubes, so-called linear accelerators, and then deflecting them with specially arranged magnets. In the process the particles emit X-ray radiation that is amplified until an ultra-short and intensive X-ray flash is released.
Researchers use these X-ray flashes to resolve structures as small as one ten billionth of a meter (0.1 nanometer) in size. That is roughly the diameter of a ...
LA JOLLA, CA--November 24, 2014--A team led by scientists from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has found a simple method to convert human skin cells into the specialized neurons that detect pain, itch, touch and other bodily sensations. These neurons are also affected by spinal cord injury and involved in Friedreich's ataxia, a devastating and currently incurable neurodegenerative disease that largely strikes children.
The discovery allows this broad class of human neurons and their sensory mechanisms to be studied relatively easily in the laboratory. The "induced ...
ANN ARBOR--Our bones are smart. Bones know that by adolescence it's time to stop growing longer and stronger, and from that point on bones keep their shape by healing injuries.
This question of why bones grow longer and stronger in children, but stay static in adults--yet retain the ability to heal themselves, has long perplexed scientists in the bone regeneration field. But researchers from the University of Michigan, Kyoto University and Harvard University believe they may have unearthed a big piece of this puzzle.
The team discovered that a certain subset of cartilage-making ...
VIDEO:
When zebrafish are infected with bright blue Mycobacterium marinum, bright red immune cells quickly surround the bacteria to form tightly organized nuggets called granulomas (vessels green, bacteria blue, immune cells...
Click here for more information.
DURHAM, N.C. -- The body responds to tuberculosis infection by locking the bacterial offenders into tiny clusters of immune cells called granulomas, which are a hallmark of the disease. This containment strategy succeeds ...
The structure of pores found in cell nuclei has been uncovered by a UCL-led team of scientists, revealing how they selectively block certain molecules from entering, protecting genetic material and normal cell functions. The discovery could lead to the development of new drugs against viruses that target the cell nucleus and new ways of delivering gene therapies, say the scientists behind the study.
At the heart of every cell in our body is a cell nucleus, a dense structure that contains our DNA. For a cell to function normally, it needs to surround its nucleus with a ...
The first detailed, high-resolution 3-D maps of Antarctic sea ice have been developed using an underwater robot. Scientists from the UK, USA and Australia say the new technology provides accurate ice thickness measurements from areas that were previously too difficult to access.
The results, published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience (Monday 24 November 2014), step up the pace of research in the polar regions aimed at understanding the dramatic sea ice changes in the context of climate change.
Scientists use a range of technologies and techniques to measure ...
Scientists have discovered a gene that protects people against one of the major causes of stroke in young and middle-aged adults and could hold the key to new treatments.
Researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London, together with an international team from across the United States and Europe, have found that people with a specific variant of a gene, known as PHACTR1, are at reduced risk of suffering cervical artery dissection, which is caused by a tear in an artery that leads to the brain.
The new discovery, published in the journal Nature Genetics, could ...
Scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have studied the dynamics of electrons from the "wonder material" graphene in a magnetic field for the first time. This led to the discovery of a seemingly paradoxical phenomenon in the material. Its understanding could make a new type of laser possible in the future. Together with researchers from Berlin, France, the Czech Republic and the United States, the scientists precisely described their observations in a model and have now published their findings in the scientific journal Nature Physics.
Graphene ...
Boston, MA - Researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have found a novel mechanism causing type 2 diabetes that could be targeted to prevent or treat the disease. The research highlights a previously unrecognized molecular pathway that contributes to the malfunction of liver cells in obesity, leading to insulin resistance and diabetes.
The study appears online November 24, 2014 in Nature Medicine.
"While it is well-established that obesity generates cellular and molecular stress leading to abnormal functioning of many cellular processes, the mechanisms ...
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Researchers have made great progress in recent years in the design and creation of biological circuits -- systems that, like electronic circuits, can take a number of different inputs and deliver a particular kind of output. But while individual components of such biological circuits can have precise and predictable responses, those outcomes become less predictable as more such elements are combined.
A team of researchers at MIT has now come up with a way of greatly reducing that unpredictability, introducing a device that could ultimately allow such ...
