Prenatal Care

Download or read book Prenatal Care written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1988-02-01 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prenatal care programs have proven effective in improving birth outcomes and preventing low birthweight. Yet over one-fourth of all pregnant women in the United States do not begin prenatal care in the first 3 months of pregnancy, and for some groupsâ€"such as black teenagersâ€"participation in prenatal care is declining. To find out why, the authors studied 30 prenatal care programs and analyzed surveys of mothers who did not seek prenatal care. This new book reports their findings and offers specific recommendations for improving the nation's maternity system and increasing the use of prenatal care programs.