Regional program for prevention of premature birth in northwestern North Carolina.

We present our experience with introducing and implementing a prematurity prevention program in a 20-county region in northwest North Carolina. The program is based on the risk assessment and educational model. In the first 25 months of results available, 17,370 births occurred in women enrolled in the project. During 1985, 42.5% of all births in the region occurred in the project. During the time span examined, a downward trend was seen for rates of low birth weight births in public and private patients and for very low birth weight births in private patients. During 1985, private births in the project were significantly less likely to be low birth weight or very low birth weight than private births to women not in the project. These results suggest that regional implementation of prematurity prevention programs is feasible and that such programs are particularly appropriate for private patients.