Declining Trends in the Provision of Prenatal Care Visits by Family Physicians

The Article in Brief

Declining Trends in the Provision of Prenatal Care Visits by Family Physicians

Donna Cohen and colleagues

Background Family physicians make an important contribution to maternity care, particularly in rural areas. The number of family physicians providing maternity care declined in the 1980s and 1990s, but there have been no recent studies showing whether and how these numbers have changed. This study measures the proportion of prenatal visits to family physicians between 1995 and 2004, and the characteristics of prenatal visits to family doctors as compared with those to obstetricians.

What This Study Found Over a 10-year period, the proportion of prenatal visits to family physicians in the United Sates declined nearly 50%. Using data representing more than 244 million prenatal visits, researchers document a decrease in percentage of prenatal visits to family physicians from 11.6% to 6.1%. Family physicians are more likely than obstetricians to provide prenatal visits to women who are younger, live in rural areas, or have Medicaid insurance.

Implications

• Rural and medically underserved areas have experienced significant declines in maternity care by family physicians. This could affect women�s access to prenatal care in communities throughout the United States.
• As family physicians provide less maternity care, it may be difficult to support family medicine-based curriculum, recruit faculty members, identify community role models, or develop sustainable models for residency graduates to include maternity care in their practices, leading to further declines in accessible prenatal care providers.