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 Family Support services: provided access by the local health department to nurses, social workers, registered dieticians and nutritionists, health educators, and public health assistants

In March 2011, South Carolina launched its “Birth Outcomes Initiative” to continue efforts to address infant mortality at the state level. The goals of the program are to improve perinatal outcomes for mothers and babies, reduce disparities in birth outcomes, and create measureable cost savings in perinatal and neonatal care. The efforts include strategies to:  Decrease early elective deliveries (those deliveries before 39 weeks gestation, without a medical indication) by receiving pledges from all birthing hospitals to stop the practice of inducing labor or delivering infants via cesarean section prior to 39 weeks.  Expand the Centering Pregnancy programs from two to five medical practices throughout the state.  Reimburse hospital for insertion of long acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) immediately postpartum.  Facilitate access of 17P (17-alph-hydroxyprogesterone) to mothers who had experienced previous spontaneous preterm deliveries, in order to prevent subsequent preterm births.  Incentivize delivering hospitals with funding to gain Baby Friendly status.  Develop Screening, Brief, Intervention, Referral, and Treatment (SBIRT), a screening tool to evaluate pregnant women for substance abuse, depression, and domestic violence, in order to refer them to appropriate care.  Analyze the risk factors for low birth weight births to inform ongoing programs that may reduce the prevalence of these births, as well as improving the understanding of the racial disparities in the rate of low birth weight births.  Streamline the Medicaid application process for pregnant women through presumptive eligibility.

In 2013, South Carolina launched the Healthy Mother, Healthy Babies Infant Mortality Reduction Plan in conjunction with other ongoing statewide initiatives. The plan continued many existing programs and outlined several additional recommendations and strategies for reducing infant mortality.  Improve access to systems of care  Ensure that all pregnant women and high-risk infants have access to the appropriate level of care through a well established regional perinatal system.  Streamline the Medicaid applications process.  Provide interconception care coordination to women with previous low birth weight and premature deliveries.  Improve pregnancy spacing through increased access to long acting reversible contraceptives (LARCS), such as intrauterine devices (IUD) and contraceptive implants.