Prematurity.

"One in eight babies now is born prematurely."  By that they mean, before the end of the 37th week of gestation.   

Personally, I’m curious how many of those are born early because of maltimed unnecessary inductions or scheduled c-sections.  The article alludes to that possibility when it suggests one way to combat premature birth:

[The Institute of Medicine recommended that m]ore pregnant women receive a first-trimester ultrasound exam, the only way to be certain of the fetus’ exact age. That’s particularly important if the woman later has labor induced or a Caesarean section before her due date, either elective or because of a possible health problem.

Fair enough, except for that "the only way to be certain" bit.  Somebody’s never heard of fertility awareness.  Granted, it’s unrealistic from a public-health standpoint to recommend that "more women who may become pregnant track their basal body temperatures," but that’s no excuse for the inaccuracy here.  And incidentally, do we really want to go the route where ultrasounds in the first trimester are considered a routine and necessary part of prenatal care?  OTOH, it may be a reasonable choice for women who are at risk of preterm labor.

And then there’s the artificial conception connection:

Specialists should strengthen guidelines that reduce the number of multiple births as a result of infertility treatment. During in-vitro fertilization, doctors often implant several embryos at once into a woman’s womb. That number has been dropping thanks to guidelines from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, issued in 1999 and tightened in 2004 — and triplet-and-higher multiple births have dropped, too.

I’m glad for those guidelines, especially if it means that fewer embryos will be created and tossed in the haz-waste bin.  Doesn’t make it right, but reduces the harm by a small bit.  I wish people would stop calling this "infertility treatment" though.

But it won’t be easy to follow the example of some European countries that implant just one embryo at a time, said Dr. William Gibbons, president of the Society of Assisted Reproductive Technology. Those countries also pay for women to undergo multiple IVF attempts, while very few American women have insurance coverage for a procedure that can cost more than $15,000 per try, he noted.

"If we want to buy into this, society needs to buy into it," said Gibbons — who added that parts of Europe also found they saved money on treating preemies even after paying for repeated single-embryo IVF attempts.

Bleah.   They’d probably save more money if they didn’t pay for any IVF attempts.  I’m sure the folks at the SART would love to have the taxpayers and insurance customers foot the bill for IVF.  Fifteen thousand bucks for an elective procedure that doesn’t relieve any condition?