The purpose of this report is to describe births to Connecticut mothers with HUSKY Program or Medicaid coverage in 2011. Prenatal care indicators and birth outcomes for births to mothers with publicly-funded coverage were compared to all other in-state births to Connecticut residents. Trends based on data from successive birth cohorts since 2000 were analyzed. This report on births in 2011 is the twelfth in a series of reports issued by Connecticut Voices for Children as a part of its HUSKY Program performance monitoring.
Key findings:
- The HUSKY Program covers two out of every five births in Connecticut.
- Mothers in the HUSKY Program and Medicaid are younger than other Connecticut mothers, less likely to get early prenatal care, and their babies are more likely to be preterm and low birthweight.
- Even though the rate has declined dramatically over the years, mothers in the HUSKY Program and Medicaid are far more likely to smoke during pregnancy.
- After years of increase, the rate of cesarean deliveries began to level out for mothers with HUSKY coverage and for other mothers.
We recommend that Connecticut monitor enrollment changes associated with reducing Medicaid coverage for HUSKY parents and monitor the impact of maternity care provider reimbursement cuts on provider participation in Medicaid and access to care. We recommend that Connecticut continue to fund ongoing linkage of birth records with HUSKY A and B and Medicaid FFS records so that data are readily available for HUSKY Program oversight, public health surveillance, program evaluation, and health policy development.
