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Strengthen the Evidence for Maternal and Child Health Programs

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Established Evidence Results

Results for Measure: Postpartum Visit Strategy: Group Prenatal Care

Below are articles that support specific interventions to advance MCH National Performance Measures (NPMs) and Standardized Measures (SMs). Most interventions contain multiple components as part of a coordinated strategy/approach.

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Heberlein, E., Smith, J., Willis, C., Hall, W., Covington-Kolb, S., & Crockett, A. (2020). The effects of CenteringPregnancy group prenatal care on postpartum visit attendance and contraception use. Contraception, 102(1), 46–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.contraception.2020.02.010

Evidence Rating: Emerging

Intervention Components (click on component to see a list of all articles that use that intervention): Group Education, Prenatal Care Access,

Intervention Description: The South Carolina CenteringPregnancy Expansion Project provides training, technical assistance, and start-up funds to obstetric practices implementing the CenteringPregnancy™ model. Practices joined the initiative in several cohorts over seven years. The CenteringPregnancy model of group prenatal care includes all of the elements of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology’s recommended individual care physical assessment and screening visits. Prenatal care is provided in ten, two-hour group sessions with six to twelve women with similar due dates within a 4–6 week range. The first 30 min of each session is dedicated to individual, routine medical assessments by the healthcare provider, and the remaining 90 min are composed of group discussions and interactive activities facilitated by the medical care team using a curriculum focused on pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting-related topics. Women will also attend traditional, individual prenatal care visits early in pregnancy (i.e. before enrolling in the group), late in pregnancy (i.e. after the 10th session and before birth), as replacement for a missed group session, and if they require additional individualized follow-up.

Intervention Results: Women attending at least five group sessions had higher rates of postpartum visit attendance (71.5% vs. 67.5%, p < .05). Women with any group attendance (N = 2834) were more likely than women with individual care only (N = 13,088) to receive contraception within 3 days (19.8% vs. 16.9%, p < .001) and to receive a LARC within eight weeks’ postpartum (18.0% vs. 15.2%, p < .001).

Conclusion: Participation in at least five group compared to five individual prenatal care visits is associated with greater rates of postpartum visit attendance. Additional engagement and education in group prenatal care may influence postpartum visit attendance.

Study Design: Retrospective cohort analysis

Setting: 18 sites implementing the CenteringPregnancy model in South Carolina

Population of Focus: Pregnant women enrolled in Medicaid

Sample Size: 2,834 women with prenatal group attendance; 13,088 with individual care only

Age Range: 14--44

Access Abstract

The MCH Digital Library is one of six special collections at Geogetown University, the nation's oldest Jesuit institution of higher education. It is supported in part by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under award number U02MC31613, MCH Advanced Education Policy with an award of $700,000/year. The library is also supported through foundation and univerity funding. This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.