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http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/19/health/19BABY.html?tntemail0

Newborn's One-Night Stay Said to Pose No Danger

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

OSTON, Dec. 18 — Deliveries that send new mothers home from the hospital after one night do not seriously endanger newborns despite the many state laws that restrict the practice, a study to be published on Thursday says.

Regardless of whether they had long or short stays, infants were later sent to the emergency room or readmitted to the hospital at the same rate, according to the study, by researchers from the Harvard Medical School.

An overnight stay "can be safe, if it's done carefully," said Dr. Jeanne Madden, the health policy specialist who led the study, which will appear in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The one-night stays were quickly followed by home visits.

The researchers did not look at the mothers' health. All the cases involved routine deliveries. The study excluded women who had Caesarean sections or serious complications.

The research was financed by government grants and the foundation arm of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, the oldest managed-care organization in New England and part of which insured the mothers in the study.

The study examined 20,366 infants delivered normally over three periods, the early 90's, when stays were becoming shorter; the mid-90's, when they were shorter for women under a program the H.M.O. ran; and the late 90's, when a minimum 48-hour stay went into effect in Massachusetts.

For all three periods, newborn visits to emergency rooms held steady at an average of 1 percent every three months. Hospital readmissions held at 1.5 percent. The same pattern was found for a more vulnerable group of young lower-income mothers with less education.

Insurance groups said the study confirmed their positions.

"The political system made a judgment about what was preferred care," said Karen Ignagni, president of the American Association of Health Plans, which represents managed-care plans. "Now the research is showing there was probably a rush to judgment."

Kate Pickett, an assistant professor of health studies and obstetrics at the University of Chicago, said the more vulnerable infants might have fared worse if they had not had follow-up home visits.

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