Wellness Intervention with Pregnant Soldiers

The purpose of this study was to measure the effects of a wellness intervention program on pregnancy outcomes, methods of delivery, complication rates, Army Physical Fitness Test scores, Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) scores, and health care costs. The study retrospectively reviewed and analyzed 823 active-duty Army obstetric and newborn records, 181 Army physical-fitness test records, 411 initial questionnaires, 148 subjective postpartum questionnaires, and 22 community HRA scores, collected from records of soldiers who delivered at Madigan Army Medical Center (MAMC) between January 1992 and December 1994. Group I (n = 211) included soldiers who received the intervention and Group II (n = 147) those who did not. Group III (n = 413), a historical control group, comprised soldiers who delivered before a wellness program was offered, and Group IV (n = 52) was a high-risk population. Subgroups were used to ascertain if one aspect of the wellness program (e.g., exercise vs. education) influenced any or all of the dependent variables. Soldiers were excluded whose pregnancy was terminated before 20 weeks or who had a multiple gestation. The impact of the wellness intervention was evaluated by multivariate analysis of demographics and other variables.

Wellness-group infants had significantly increased gestational ages and birth weights, and reduced incidences of fetal bradycardia, hyperbilirubinemia, preeclampsia, and premature labor. African American soldiers (assessed in other studies as a high-risk group) appeared to have a lower incidence of premature delivery and low birth weight infants after participating in a wellness intervention. Wellness-intervention soldiers had (1) a shorter labor (1 h 45 min) than control group soldiers, (2) fewer infants who required care in the neonatal intensive-care unit, (3) infants who required fewer days in NICU, and (4) reduced health care costs associated with delivery.

Final Report is available on NTRL: https://ntrl.ntis.gov/NTRL/dashboard/searchResults/titleDetail/PB2007107...