The health insurance and wellness arm of a major insurer says it has evidence that efforts to help pregnant group plan members pay off.
Nationwide Better Health, a unit of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, Columbus, Ohio, says its FutureFootsteps program cut participants premature birth rate to 10% in 2006, compared with a national average of 12% and helped cut the percentage of babies born with low or very low birthweights to 6.6%, from a national average of 8.1%.