[Economic aspects of intensive care in obstetrics]

An intensive obstetric care unit has been established at investment costs of 646,167.--Mark which broke down into 220,248.--Mark for prepartum attention, 268,010.--Mark for intrapartum attention, and 157,909.--Mark for neonatal attention. Operational expenditures on equipment and services were found to amount to 144,052.--Mark per annum.--Specific outlays resulted from intensive obstetrics, as compared to conventional procedures. They varied between 48.--Mark and 96.--Mark per delivery, depending on annual numbers of deliveries and on the use of equipment quantitatively adapted to requirements. Individual costs for intrapartum attention varied by bedside equipment combinations and turnover of patients (n/labour bed/d) and were between 12.--Mark and 36.10 Mark.--Something between 2000 and 3000 births per annum, with patient turnovers between 1.5 and 2.0 per bed and die, was considered optimum. The cost of intensive obstetrics went up under such optimum conditions to something between 48.--Mark and 58.--Mark, with something between 14.80 Mark (BMT 504 biomonitor, Lineomat, FTS 101 foetal-function recorder) and 21.60 Mark (BMT 9141 biomonitor, Lineomat) being required for intrapartum monitoring of one birth.--Reduction in perinatal mortality, as compared to figures of conventional obstetrics and to cost factor between 519,168.--Mark and 627,328.--Mark for equipment and other hardware, yielded a benefit for 10,816 births of something between 46.9 and 167,5 million Mark.