Over the course of a typical pregnancy, a woman is supposed to see her care team roughly 14 times. But for some moms, checkups requiring time off from work, transportation to appointments and help with child care can get pushed to the bottom of the priority list.
As a result, blood pressure trends might go unnoticed. A screening test for diabetes might get put off. Issues that could be treated early on snowball into conditions that can influence the health of a newborn and mother.
In Louisiana, that pattern is not uncommon. One in four women in the state don’t receive any care in the first trimester. Roughly one in 13 babies are born to a mother who is seen for the first time when she arrives at the hospital in labor…