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The newborn screening educational gap: what prenatal care providers do compared with what is expected
Lisa A Faulkner1, Lisa B Feuchtbaum, Steve Graham
1California State University, East Bay, Hayward, CA 94542-3040, USA. lisa.faulkner@csueastbay.edu
Objective:
The purpose of this evaluation was to examine prenatal care providers' knowledge of, attitudes towards, and barriers for providing information about newborn screening and tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) screening.
Study Design:
We mailed a 12-question survey to 6197 prenatal care providers in California asking about their experiences with newborn and prenatal screening services.
Results:
Although 4/5 of respondents believe newborn screening is very important for their patients, only 1/3 discuss it with all their patients. Over half believe either pediatricians (38%) or hospital staff (36%) will discuss newborn screening. Only 61% of providers give their patients the newborn screening educational booklet, even though California law requires that the booklet be provided to all pregnant women.
Conclusion:
Pregnant women and state professionals rely on prenatal care providers to educate pregnant women about newborn screening; however, many providers do not appear to view it as part of their responsibility. Therefore, the state needs to improve communication with both providers and the public about newborn screening.
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