The Pittsburgh-based Highmark Foundation recently published a white paper featuring a $150,000 grant it awarded to the maternal services program at Butler Health System in 2012.

The paper focused on the Butler program and Every Child Inc., a human services agency in Pittsburgh, to look at how different programs have differing methods to decrease incidents of low birth weight, while achieving similar results. Every Child received a $350,000 grant from the foundation in 2012.

“Funding from the Highmark Foundation helped them to expand that program to serve additional clients and to achieve greater outcomes,” said Christina Wilds, lead corporate giving analyst with the Highmark Foundation.

“The outcomes that Butler was able to achieve in this program was that by using coordinated services was able to keep moms in care longer to make sure that they had healthy outcomes.”

During that time, from 2012 to 2013, the program served 147 additional mothers to be, Wilds said.

Butler Health System’s maternal services program was established in 1990 to provide more continuity and convenience for low-income and underinsured women, said Ann Marie Snodgrass, Butler Health System nursing director who oversees the maternal services program.

Back then, she said, “There were not obstetrical practices in this area that would see those patients. So what occurred was either the women went without receiving care, which is not a good thing, or they had to drive all the way down to the Pittsburgh area to receive care.

“And many of them, if they did get down there for some of their prenatal care, usually wouldn’t drive down there to deliver, so they ended up coming here and we had no records on them, we didn’t know how much care they had received. So because of that, that’s how this program started.”

From July 2013 to June 2014, the maternal services program had 274 patients, and those patients had 2,310 total visits within that year, Snodgrass said.

The program provides prenatal, nutritional and educational guidance through the program, meeting monthly at the beginning of the pregnancy and then meeting more frequently as the pregnancy advances. Another appointment is scheduled four to six weeks after delivery for a postpartum checkup.

The other program the Highmark Foundation funded, Every Child, uses prenatal services a bit differently.

They serve an urban, low-income minority population and have a Doula Pregnancy and Parenting Support program. The doulas assist pregnant women before, during and after child birth and establish a link to medical and support services.

Low birth weight is defined by any infant weighing less than five-and-a-half pounds. Not only are there much pricer hospital costs for low weight babies, but they also have long-term health risks that could stay with them throughout childhood.

According to the Highmark Foundation’s publication, average hospital costs for low birth weight babies is $49,612, compared to the average cost for full-term or normal weight babies at $2,829.

In Pennsylvania, 8.3 percent of babies are born with low birth weight, slightly above the 8 percent national average. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Butler County consistently has below average incidents of low birth weight, varying between 5.5 percent and 7.8 percent during the past 15 years.

Butler Health System received another grant from Highmark Foundation for its maternal services program in 2006, totaling $250,000.

This month, Butler’s maternal service program is being incorporated into six offices that provide obstetric and gynecological services. Three offices at Advanced OB/GYN Associates and three offices at BHS Women’s Care Associates will be taking in women from the program.

Locations for Advanced OB/GYN Associates are 901 E. Brady St., Butler, 2001 Ehrman Road Suite A, Cranberry Township, and 100 Innovation Drive, Slippery Rock. Call 724-285-9200.

Locations for BHS Women’s Care Associates are 127 Oneida Valley Road, Butler, 101 Alwine Road Suite 208, Saxonburg, and 121 Enclave Drive, Suite C, New Castle. Call 844-765-2845.