Babies are more likely to be born prematurely in New York now than they were a decade ago, indicating that a key metric of maternal and infant health is moving in the wrong direction, according to a recent report from March of Dimes.
The increase in New York is in line with a national trend that has alarmed OB-GYNs and maternal health advocates, after significant progress was made in reducing the number of preterm births in the early 2000s. Babies born prematurely — meaning before 37 weeks of pregnancy — are more likely to experience a range of short- and long-term health complications.
New York’s preterm birth rate increased from 8.9% in 2013 to 9.6% in 2023, the March of Dimes report found. The state is doing better than the U.S. as a whole, where the preterm birth rate increased from 9.6% to 10.4% during that period, but March of Dimes still gave New York a C+ on its latest preterm birth report card.
People who become pregnant after age 35 are at higher risk of giving birth prematurely, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And as more people wait to get pregnant, age may be a factor driving up the preterm birth rate, said Darcy Dreyer, the director of maternal and child health at March of Dimes.
State data also show that the preterm birth rate is much higher for expecting parents with chronic conditions like hypertension (24.6%) and diabetes (28.3%) than for the population as a whole.
“It’s a very multifaceted problem,” Dreyer said. “Women are often delaying having children until later in life, when they may be dealing with more chronic health conditions than they would have when they were younger.”
The worsening of preterm birth rates comes after a period of significant improvement that began in 2007, according to data from the CDC. That decline in preterm births had to do with a shift away from certain medical practices that became popular in the 1990s and early 2000s, the CDC said.
“There was unfortunately a period when some providers around the country were delivering patients [early] for not-good medical reasons, either by induction or cesarean section,” said Dr. Rodney Wright, the vice chair of obstetrics at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.
But chronic conditions are largely driving the current rise in preterm births, and doctors will have to tackle those underlying medical issues to see an improvement, Wright said. In the Bronx, where diabetes and hypertension are more prevalent, the preterm birth rate was 11% in 2023, according to the March of Dimes report.
Wright said Montefiore seeks to improve outcomes by offering special care to pregnant patients who are diabetic both during their pregnancies and in the months after giving birth “so that they come into the next pregnancy at a better weight and at a better [blood-sugar level] and at a better blood pressure to help to reduce the rates of preterm birth in the next pregnancy.”
While a range of factors contribute to the risk of a preterm birth, there are also factors that help protect against it, such as having coverage for prenatal care and receiving public nutrition benefits, according to a recent study conducted by NYU researchers in California.
The March of Dimes report praised New York for some of its policies seeking to improve maternal and infant health outcomes, including Medicaid coverage for doulas and paid family leave.
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