Little surprise here: mothers and children do best when they have private insurance, not Medicaid.

The Alabama Center for Health Statistics reports (PDF) on the correlation between a mother's insurance status and her health and that of her infant.

The Montgomery Advertiser provides a quick look:

Among the findings: White mothers had more private health insurance than minorities, women with less than 12 years of education were more likely to be on Medicaid and 83.1 percent of mothers who were younger than age 20 used the federal insurance program.

And ...

The study found that babies whose deliveries were paid for by Medicaid were 40 percent more likely to be born at a low birth weight than those with private insurance. Babies covered by Medicaid were more than 60 percent more likely to die than those with private insurance, researchers found.

Also noteworthy: 96 percent of deliveries were paid for at least in party by private insurance or Medicaid.

The ratio? Half and half.

The report points to factors that will be hard to address through reform of health care policy. Most teenage dropouts, for example, can't afford private insurance, and are probably more prone to activity (such as smoking) that contributes to low-birth wait babies.