Group Prenatal Care vs. Traditional Prenatal Care: A Parity-Matched Comparison of Perinatal Outcomes in a Rural Community

SignificanceWe provide a comprehensive table comparingprevious studies of group care with a focus on differences in the populationsstudied. Ours is the first to provide perinatal outcomes from a ruralpopulation in the US and only the second to match for parity, a keypredictor. Our groups were smaller than previous reports, but our completematching on parity and contemporaneous delivery of the control group are strengths. We found no difference intraditional perinatal outcome, but group care patients reported higher rates ofbreastfeeding and not smoking, a difference only found in two previousurban-based reports. PurposePrenatal care is important for positive outcomes for both mother and infant. The traditional one-on-one method remains the most common. This study aimed to compare perinatal outcomes of patients attending group prenatal care with traditional prenatal care. Most previously published comparisons did not match for parity, a key predictor of perinatal outcome.DescriptionWe collected perinatal outcome data for 137group prenatal care patients and 137 traditional prenatal care patients,matched for contemporaneous delivery and parity, who delivered at our smallrural hospital during 2015-2016. We included key public health variables,including the initiation of breastfeeding, and smoking at the time of delivery.AssessmentThere was no difference between the two groups for maternal age or infant ethnicity, induced or augmented labor, preterm deliveries, APGAR scores less than 7, low birth weight, NICU admissions, or cesarean deliveries. Group care patients had more prenatal visits and were more likely to initiate breastfeeding and were less likely to report smoking at the time of delivery.ConclusionIn our rural population matched for contemporaneous delivery and parity, we found no difference in traditional perinatal outcome measures and that group care was positively associated with the key public health variables of not smoking and initiating breastfeeding. If future studies in other populations have similar findings, it may be wise to provide group care more widely to rural populations.