Doula Care, Birth Outcomes, and Costs Among Medicaid Beneficiaries

Objectives. We compared childbirth-related outcomes for Medicaid recipients who received prenatal education and childbirth support from trained doulas with outcomes from a national sample of similar women and estimated potential cost savings. Methods. We calculated descriptive statistics for Medicaid-funded births nationally (from the 2009 Nationwide Inpatient Sample; n = 279 008) and births supported by doula care (n = 1079) in Minneapolis,...