Integrating Well-Woman and Well-Baby Care to Improve Parenting and Family Wellness

Integrating Well-Woman and Well-Baby Care to Improve Parenting and Family Wellness

We hypothesize that relative to families who receive standard individual postpartum and pediatric care, families that receive group care will be more likely to have:

• Improved maternal and child health behaviors: i.e increased breastfeeding, exercise, child safety measures in the home and decreased smoking.
• Better health care use for babies: i.e. attend more care visits, on-time and complete immunizations and decreased emergency services use.
• Better psychosocial outcomes for the families: i.e. decreased stress and depression, and increased social support.
• Improved parenting skills: i.e. improved knowledge of child development, involvement in developmentally appropriate activities, and parental sense of competence.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Postpartum woman with baby in her care
• Receive well-woman care, well-child care and interviews in English
• Willingness to receive care in a group setting
• Woman planning to receive care at the Yale Women's Center for herself and the Primary Care Center for her baby

Exclusion Criteria:

• severe medical problem requiring individualized care for mother or baby
• Baby born at less than 37 weeks gestation
• Baby remaining in hospital when mother getting discharged for any other reason except hyperbilirubinemia
• Baby with severe cardiac, respiratory, neuro-developmental or surgical problems