In Johnson County, for every 1,000 infants born in recent years, fewer than five don’t make it to their first birthday. In Wyandotte County, the number is closer to eight.
Women's and Maternal Health
Advocates have been urging the FDA to allow corn masa to be fortified with folic acid for years, with the goal of curbing rare birth defects among Hispanic children. The FDA hasn't budged so far, but that could change as the agency reviews new research.
When it comes to lowering high infant mortality rates, Rwanda has become an encouraging if unexpected example of what can be done with "big data made small."
Washington state health officials say they’ll start telling families who’ve lost babies to a devastating birth-defects cluster about genetic studies aimed at decoding possible causes.
Washington state Medicaid officials are changing the rule for coverage of vitamins that contain folic acid — a change that may reduce the risk of birth defects like those seen in an ongoing cluster in Central Washington.
Washington is among 33 states that don’t have active birth-defects surveillance systems to track problems. It took an astute nurse to raise warnings about a cluster of rare and fatal defects in Central Washington.
The Food and Drug Administration will review a long-delayed petition calling for the voluntary addition of folic acid to corn masa to prevent neural-tube defects such as those seen in Washington’s cluster.
More than 40 mothers have lost babies to a rare and deadly birth defect in three counties in central Washington state since 2010, but the cause remains unknown. Why haven’t health officials and lawmakers done more to find answers?
A hospital in Marin County, California, has successfully lowered its Cesarean-section rates by employing nurse midwives. As KRCB’s Danielle Venton reports, duplicating those results around the state is going to require some creative thinking.
Last week, columnist William Heisel criticized the new California Healthcare Compare's website for how it rates hospitals on childbirth, noting that the tool focused too heavily on C-sections and breastfeeding. This week, he offers five indicators that would give potential patients a fuller picture.