Small babies cost big in S.C.

South Carolina’s low-weight newborns cost $166 million above the hospitalization costs for normal-weight babies, according to a report released today.

That’s worrisome, health officials said, because of the 10 percent increase in low-weight births between 1990 and 2001.

The 9.6 percent of newborns who are low-weight — 5.5 pounds or less — account for 57 percent of all newborn hospitalization costs, said Baron Holmes, director of South Carolina Kids Count. The state’s Medicaid program pays more than 60 percent of that, he said.

Today’s Right Start report, by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, is part of its Kids Count program to improve life for the nation’s children. South Carolina ranked 47th in low birth weights, with 14.5 percent in 2001 compared with the national average of 7.7 percent.

However, Holmes said, there were bright spots in the report for South Carolina. It had fewer births to teens (compared with 1990), fewer births with little or no prenatal care, fewer births to undereducated mothers, and fewer births to mothers who smoked during pregnancy.

For more information online go to www.aecf.org/kidscount/