High-tech interventions deliver huge childbirth bill

Childbirth is the leading reason for hospitalization in the USA and one of the top reasons for outpatient visits, yet much maternity care consists of high-tech procedures that lack scientific evidence of benefit for most women, a report says today.

U.S. hospital charges for maternal and newborn care jumped from $79 billion in 2005 to $86 billion in 2006, the authors write. More than $2.5 billion a year is spent on unnecessary C-sections, which now represent nearly a third of all deliveries.

Reducing expensive techniques such as C-sections and increasing low-cost approaches such as childbirth assistants called doulas would improve mothers' and babies' health while cutting costs

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-10-08-childbirth-costs_N.htm