@article{e59194f37d814e54af0d5c33840ca3b3,
title = "Life cycle assessment perspectives on delivering an infant in the US",
abstract = "This study introduces life cycle assessment as a tool to analyze one aspect of sustainability in healthcare: the birth of a baby. The process life cycle assessment case study presented evaluates two common procedures in a hospital, a cesarean section and a vaginal birth. This case study was conducted at Magee-Womens Hospital of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which delivers over 10,000 infants per year. The results show that heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), waste disposal, and the production of the disposable custom packs comprise a large percentage of the environmental impacts. Applying the life cycle assessment tool to medical procedures allows hospital decision makers to target and guide efforts to reduce the environmental impacts of healthcare procedures.",
keywords = "Cesarean, Life cycle assessment, Operating room, Sustainability, Vaginal birth",
author = "Nicole Campion and Thiel, {Cassandra L.} and Justin DeBlois and Woods, {Noe C.} and Landis, {Amy E.} and Bilec, {Melissa M.}",
note = "Funding Information: The authors are grateful for the reviewers' comments that significantly improved the paper. We would also like to thank Drew Chidester, Sam McMahon, David Gosnell, Judy Focareta, and Magee Staff. The project described was supported by NSF IGERT Award No. 050434 . The project described was supported by the National Institutes of Health through Grant Numbers UL1 RR024153 and UL1TR000005 . Funding Information: Authors Campion, Thiel, DeBlois, and Bilec are employees of the University of Pittsburgh employee. Author Woods is an employee of Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC. Landis is an employee of Arizona State University. Further financial support for these authors comes from Grant Number ULI RR024153 from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and NIH Roadmap for Medical Research (Campion, Thiel, Landis, Bilec, and Woods) and Award No. 050434 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) (Thiel, DeBlois). ",
year = "2012",
month = may,
day = "15",
doi = "10.1016/j.scitotenv.2012.03.006",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "425",
pages = "191--198",
journal = "Science of the Total Environment",
issn = "0048-9697",
publisher = "Elsevier",
}