CDC: Prenatal care ticks down, sparking concern among health researchers

The number of women going through pregnancy without prenatal care is growing — even though the overall number of babies born in the U.S. is falling, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Source: “More pregnant women are going without prenatal care, CDC finds,” NBC News, Aug. 20).
 
According to the analysis, published Tuesday by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, the percentage of mothers without any prenatal care rose from 2.2% in 2022 to 2.3% in 2023, the CDC’s analysis of birth certificates found. Even that slight increase could be detrimental to the health of both mom and baby, said Dr. Kathryn Lindley, a cardio-obstetrician at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.  

“There’s a lot of baby monitoring that goes on during pregnancy to help us identify any potential health problems,” such as birth defects or unusually high blood pressure, she said.

Just under 3.6 million babies were born in the U.S. last year, down 2% from 2022, according to the CDC analysis. The decline resumes a decades long fall in births after a slight uptick during the early years of the Covid pandemic, which could have been due to lockdown among couples or a lack of access to contraception at pharmacies or doctors’ offices.