Q&A
Addressing maternal and neonatal health disparities
0:13:02
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151 sec
Council Member Powers questions Dr. Espiritu about the disparities in maternal mortality rates between black and white mothers in New York City, and asks for his insights on addressing these issues. Dr. Espiritu emphasizes the importance of early prenatal care and addressing social determinants of health.
- Early prenatal care in the first trimester is crucial for better outcomes
- Late registrations for prenatal care can lead to poor outcomes
- Social determinants of health, including nutrition, significantly impact maternal and neonatal health
- Aggressive outreach to newly pregnant mothers and improved referral systems are needed
Keith Powers
0:13:02
Okay.
0:13:02
Okay.
0:13:04
I wanna talk a little bit.
0:13:06
You you Bellevue Hospital, which is in my district that I'm very fond of.
0:13:11
You I believe your special specialty is neonatology.
0:13:15
Yes.
0:13:16
And, you know, we've discussed here in the city council disparities in mortality.
0:13:20
We're black pork black paternal families five times higher than mortality amongst white mothers here Mhmm.
0:13:25
In New York City.
0:13:27
Can can you discuss some of the reasons that you see behind that disparity any recent developments in the field or particularly in your work to address our problem and how you think h and h can or what they should do to improve its own outcomes?
Michael Espiritu
0:13:41
I think, you know, everything start with prenatal care.
0:13:44
And so, aggressively, plugging women into prenatal care early in the pregnancy in the 1st trimester.
0:13:55
I know during my time at Bellevue, there were a lot of mothers or children that that I took care of whose mothers came into prenatal care late late registrations.
0:14:05
We call them.
0:14:05
They came into prenatal care late in a 3rd trimester where a lot of monitoring, supportive care, nutritional guidance, things like that throughout the pregnancy were not really were were neglected until until later on.
0:14:23
And so that that certainly is is a major factor in a lot of poor outcomes.
0:14:31
And then all of the other social determinants of health that I think, you know, can adversely affect the health of the of the developing baby prior to pregnancy, nutrition being being a major one.
0:14:49
So lack of access to adequate nutrition, adequate prenatal vitamins, funeral care.
0:14:56
So I think an important aspect of of equity and and improving neonatal outcomes is aggressive, really outreach, and 2 newly pregnant mothers early in their pregnant see, you know, being referred to prenatal care, to an obstetrician, from whatever primary point of care, they may come into the system, whether it be their other primary care doctor or other other points of contact with our system.
