For Every Dollar Spent -- The Cost-Savings Argument for Prenatal Care

Abstract

Public spending for prenatal care in the United States has been justified in recent years primarily by the cost-savings argument. Prenatal care, it is argued, can prevent the costs and medical complications associated with low birth weight; it is public health spending that pays for itself. This proposition seems intuitively reasonable and supports a popular public policy. Moreover, the findings of the body of research we consider here have given this assertion considerable weight and remarkable precision. Few other claims in medicine or in public health can be encapsulated into the statement that for every $1.00 spent, $1.701 (or $2.57 . . .