Katie Couric's Notebook: Premature Birth

By: Katie Couric
Topics: Katie Couric's Notebook

It's a key factor used to determine the quality of health care in industrialized nations: the infant mortality rate. Sadly, the United States has not faired well in that category. In fact, it ranks 30th in the world - behind most of Europe, Japan and Israel.

Premature delivery is a leading cause of death for newborns and the rate of babies arriving too soon has climbed a staggering 36 percent since 1984. Technology and medicine have improved by leaps and bounds since then - so why is the preemie rate rising?

Dr. Alan Fleischman of the March of Dimes says factors like obesity and smoking can lead to early labor, but there's a bigger problem. Twenty percent of women in child bearing years have no health insurance - and there is no guaranteed access to prenatal care if they do get pregnant.

Education and access are the tools needed for the U.S. to strive for first place - and allow more of our tiniest citizens to enjoy a first birthday.

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

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by kenhamlett November 18, 2009 8:36 AM EST

Regardless of the USNews article cited by a reader, our health care system is actually a very poor representative of the potential of modern medicine. While we can speculate about specific details which contribute to the problems such as obesity, they are not the core problem. First we need to address the larger system wide problems then refine the details as we go. The fact is that as doctors rely more on technology to do their jobs for them, their indifference to the patient increases which leads to worse care than before the technological advances.
Our medical care is often indifferent or incompetent but the transgressors are seldom purged from the system. The first order of business is to get rid of the bad and the second is to stop the medicine as a get rich quick scheme.
While I have turned my back on most of the foolishness that comprises the medical industry, I still have to have sympathy for those that falsely have faith in a failed system. The best advice I could give is the same as was given over a hundred years ago:
Prayer is the path to healing.
The modern addition to this advice is:
If you rely on modern medicine, pray harder. You will need it.

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by njneer November 18, 2009 9:21 AM EST: If I understand your point of view correctly, you believe that one of the problems of our "failed system" is that doctors rely too heavily on technology? Would you prefer they dig around in your body with a dental pick? Or, do you think you'd go ahead and get that new-fangled MRI?


by njneer November 17, 2009 10:31 PM EST: Heaven forbid I tell anyone how to do their job, but for Pete's sake, do a little research before lying to the American people. Katie, you're either incredibly lazy, you have poor researchers or you think the American people are stupid.

Here. Do a little research:
http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/060924/2healy.htm; Reply to this comment