Good news in the world of Obstetrics!

So last week I went to a class about low risk Ob nursing. It was pretty interesting but some of it seemed like rehashing the basics of nursing school. And  most of it had more to do with labor and delivery than with post partum.  But it was a nice break from nights that's for sure! But one of the things I learned was soooooooo exciting!  For years lactation consultants and natural birth advocates have been wringing our hands about the trends of earlier and earlier elective inductions. Babies are born not ready to breastfeed, sleepy, unable to latch. They go to the NICU with respiratory distress. They can't keep their temperatures stable.  Signficant problems but problems that are often resolved with a couple extra days in the hospital. Couple problems with this...in my experience parents are rarely if ever told straight out, "Your baby is in the NICU because we delivered too early and we did it for absolutely no medical reason." Often these problems were dismissed as "just one of those things" or "Thank God for the NICU!" And when parents got the bills for these couple days in the NICU they said, "Thank God for insurance!!!!!"  (My cynical side says that the hospitals were often happy for these kind of admissions to the NICU because they weren't really that complicated but were great money makers.  But that is VERY cynical isn't it.)  But guess what, insurance companies are starting to say, "This stuff is really expensive and 100% preventable and we aren't going to pay for it!" to doctors and hospitals, especially hospitals.  So, given that hospitals have a much higher stake in this than doctors do, hospitals are starting to write policies that govern how inductions can be performed in order to prevent some of these "late pre-term" babies, one of which is that the criteria for a convenience induction has gotten much stricter. Doctors have to prove that the baby is at least 39weeks +1 day and last menstrual period won't do as proof.  In an effort to cut down on the primary c-section rate some hospitals are also requiring a certain score on a criteria that indicates likeliness that the induction will result in a vaginal birth. 
This is very cool!  And about time.  Babies deserve to cook until they are ready even if it means mama is dealing with the discomforts of pregnancy for a week or two longer.  It will be interesting to see if NICU admissions go down, and to see if this helps lower our ridiculously high c-section rate.