The Rankings

Florida
Early Prenatal Care: 2011

Early prenatal care tracks the percentage of pregnant women who receive prenatal care within the first trimester of their pregnancy. Babies born to mothers who do not receive prenatal care are more like to have a low birthweight than those born to mothers who do. This early treatment allows doctors to prevent problems, assist pregnant mothers to improve their health and to give their unborn child a healthy start.

Early prenatal care is derived directly from the birth certificate. In 2003, the National Center for Health Statistics introduced a revised live birth certificate, however implementation of the new certificate has not occurred across all 50 states. Because states are using different versions of the birth certificate, a state-to-state direct comparison of prenatal care measures cannot be made, and a national average cannot be calculated. Therefore, the prenatal care measure only compares one state to another state using the same birth certificate and their scores are calculated based upon their peer group. Early prenatal care is not adjusted for frequency of care, continuation of care, age or race. The ranks are based on data from National Center for Health Statistics at http://205.207.175.93/VitalStats/ReportFolders/reportFolders.aspx.

Prenatal care measures how early women are receiving the care they require for a healthy pregnancy and development of the fetus. Mothers who do not receive prenatal care are three times more likely to deliver a low birth weight baby than mothers who received prenatal care, and babies are five times more likely to die without the care (http://mchb.hrsa.gov/programs/womeninfants/prenatal.html). Early prenatal care allows health care providers to identify and address health conditions and behaviors that may reduce the likelihood of a healthy birth, such as smoking and drug and alcohol abuse.