{"id":12722,"date":"2024-01-23T19:50:50","date_gmt":"2024-01-23T19:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=12722"},"modified":"2024-01-23T19:50:50","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T19:50:50","slug":"pregnancy-care-deserts-are-growing-indigenous-babies-are-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=12722","title":{"rendered":"Pregnancy care deserts are growing. Indigenous babies are at risk."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“Many providers like Balay see an obvious link between rising congenital syphilis rates and sparse access to obstetric care (i.e., care for pregnant people, also called maternity or prenatal care). That\u2019s largely because, historically, prenatal care is where syphilis transmission to a fetus has been interrupted. Testing is standard in prenatal care, and all but eight states require syphilis testing during pregnancy<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is simple, as Balay explains. \u201cThere just is not enough obstetric care,\u201d she said. And as prenatal care becomes increasingly scarce, so do opportunities to catch and treat syphilis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Balay is not alone in thinking that scarcity helps explain what\u2019s happening with congenital syphilis, especially among Indigenous Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a recent CDC report<\/a>, 37 percent of US babies with syphilis were born to parents who didn\u2019t get timely syphilis testing during pregnancy. But that number was higher, 47 percent, when the parents were American Indian. And most of those parents who didn\u2019t get timely testing didn\u2019t get any prenatal care at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In rural states, increasingly inadequate maternity care access is making intensified mother-to-child syphilis transmission all but inevitable. That puts Indigenous women and their newborns at especially high risk.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“One of the most promising solutions to South Dakota\u2019s maternal care scarcity problem got a boost last year when the state\u2019s voters approved an initiative to expand Medicaid beginning in early 2023. The expansion means more than 52,000<\/a> of the state\u2019s residents are newly insured, which shifts the costs of their care from IHS to a better-funded federal program. It also means that hospitals caring for these patients will get paid more for the care they provide to the thousands of tribal residents newly covered by Medicaid. And most importantly to patients, expansion will make it more financially feasible<\/a> to get the care they need.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/health\/2024\/1\/3\/24010263\/pregnancy-maternity-prenatal-care-deserts-rural-syphilis-indigenous-women-babies-south-dakota<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Many providers like Balay see an obvious link between rising congenital syphilis rates and sparse access to obstetric care (i.e., care for pregnant people, also called maternity or prenatal care). That\u2019s largely because, historically, prenatal care is where syphilis transmission to a fetus has been interrupted. Testing is standard in prenatal care, and all but eight states require syphilis testing during pregnancy.
\nThe problem is simple, as Balay explains. \u201cThere just is not enough obstetric care,\u201d she said. And as prenatal care becomes increasingly scarce, so do opportunities to catch and treat syphilis.<\/p>\n

Balay is not alone in thinking that scarcity helps explain what\u2019s happening with congenital syphilis, especially among Indigenous Americans.<\/p>\n

In a recent CDC report, 37 percent of US babies with syphilis were born to parents who didn\u2019t get timely syphilis testing during pregnancy. But that number was higher, 47 percent, when the parents were American Indian. And most of those parents who didn\u2019t get timely testing didn\u2019t get any prenatal care at all.<\/p>\n

In rural states, increasingly inadequate maternity care access is making intensified mother-to-child syphilis transmission all but inevitable. That puts Indigenous women and their newborns at especially high risk.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“One of the most promising solutions to South Dakota\u2019s maternal care scarcity problem got a boost last year when the state\u2019s voters approved an initiative to expand Medicaid beginning in early 2023. The expansion means more than 52,000 of the state\u2019s residents are newly insured, which shifts the costs of their care from IHS to a better-funded federal program. It also means that hospitals caring for these patients will get paid more for the care they provide to the thousands of tribal residents newly covered by Medicaid. And most importantly to patients, expansion will make it more financially feasible to get the care they need.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/health\/2024\/1\/3\/24010263\/pregnancy-maternity-prenatal-care-deserts-rural-syphilis-indigenous-women-babies-south-dakota<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[831,80,73,52,1098],"class_list":["post-12722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-babies","tag-health-system","tag-healthcare","tag-pregnancy","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12723,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12722\/revisions\/12723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}