Infographic: Hospitals vary widely on maternity care

Two mothers in California go into labor at the same moment and head for the hospital. Both pregnancies are low-risk. Both will be first-time mothers. They're identical in most respects.

But their stories differ in one major way: They choose different hospitals. And the differences in care they receive impact their health -- and the health of their child -- for years to come.

New analysis from the California Hospital Assessment and Reporting Taskforce found shocking variations in performance for four measures of maternity care. The California Healthcare Foundation turned their conclusions into the infographic below.

The data included mothers who delivered a single baby in a head-down position after 37 weeks gestational age. All were having their first baby. Read more about the analysis and check out an interactive map of the highest- and lowest-scoring hospitals in California here.