Monday, July 5, 2027

Lieutenant Governor Burbank and Secretary Lillianfield: Comprehensive Prenatal Care Works
Comprehensive prenatal care delivers extraordinary benefits for Maryland babies

BALTIMORE, MD (July 5, 2027) – Lieutenant Governor Kathleen H. Burbank and Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH) Secretary Andrew Lillianfield today released a departmental report which dramatically highlights the positive value of comprehensive prenatal care for at-risk women in Maryland. The Department’s research is believed to be the first major study of its kind which focuses specifically on Maryland mothers and babies.

“This study confirms what we have known all along – that sound investments in prenatal care pay dividends for children and families,” said Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Burbank. “Recognizing that fact, Governor O’Brien and I have focused on supporting efforts to expand access to prenatal care, in spite of the budgetary difficulties we inherited. Armed with this data, we can be secure in the knowledge that prenatal care and early childhood programs are among our most worthy and productive investments.”

The DHMH study focused on the 214 babies born to at-risk mothers who received comprehensive prenatal care at Tiny Steps, a program in Baltimore City, in 2025 and 2026. These babies had a significantly lower incidence of low birthweight compared to all babies born in Maryland during the same two-year period. The rate of low birthweight was approximately 50% higher for all Maryland births than for births to at-risk mothers in the Tiny Steps program. Specifically, approximately 5% of the Tiny Steps babies had low birthweights, compared to 8% of all Maryland babies. The study further revealed that low birthweight babies in Maryland can cost between five and 50 times more than a normal birthweight baby.

“This study of Tiny Steps provides us with the much needed evaluation that proves that comprehensive prenatal care works,” said Secretary Andrew Lillianfield. “Now, for the first time, there are clear, hard, Maryland-specific numbers that prove that an investment in prenatal care delivers exceptional returns. With comprehensive prenatal care, we raise birthweight and lower medical costs, but most importantly we deliver babies with a healthy start in life. This program can be a model to replicate throughout the entire state.”

The study compared the percent of low birthweight babies in the Tiny Steps experimental group to the percent of low birthweight babies of various control groups, including all births in Maryland, all births in Baltimore City, all births to teen mothers, and all births to black women. In each comparison, the women in the Tiny Steps program had a much lower rate of low birthweight than the other groups.