Intensive Care for Newborns is Good Investment

Data from Mexico likely valid for other middle-income countries

17 December 2010

New research suggests neonatal intensive care is cost effective in countries which are economically similar to Mexico, but maybe not in very poor countries.

Premature and low birth weight babies are surviving as never before, thanks to treatments available in neonatal intensive care units. That's mainly true in rich countries. But a new study suggests that these high-tech, high-intensity hospital services make economic sense in middle-income countries, too.

The often amazing results from neonatal intensive care comes at a hefty price in rich countries — doctor and hospital bills often climb into the tens of thousands of dollars, or more.

Medical care is cheaper in countries like Mexico, but people have less money, and there are many other competing medical needs.

So Joshua Salomon of the Harvard School of Public Health and his colleagues analyzed the costs and results of neonatal intensive care in Mexico. Using government data, they factored in the costs of medical care plus the costs of taking care of babies who survived with mental or physical disabilities against the value of longer life for babies who might not otherwise have survived.

Salomon says they concluded neonatal intensive care is a very good investment.

"Neonatal intensive care actually provides exceptionally high value for money when you tally up all of the short-term and long-term health gains against the relatively high cost of the intervention itself," he said in a telephone interview.