Creating New Strategies to Enhance Postpartum Health and Wellness

Abstract

Over the past 5 years there have been a number of new initiatives focused on improving birth outcomes and reducing infant mortality, including a renewed focus on the complex interactions between motherhood and infancy that influence lifelong health trajectories. Beginning in 2012, the Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs (AMCHP) facilitated a series of meetings to enhance coordination across initiatives. Emerging from these conversations was a shared desire across stakeholders to reimagine the postpartum visit and improve postpartum care and wellness. AMCHP convened a Postpartum Think-Tank Meeting in 2014 to map the system of postpartum care and identify levers for its transformation. The meeting findings are presented in an infographic which frames the challenges and proposed solutions from the woman’s perspective. The infographic describes maternal issues and concerns along with a concise summary of the recommended solutions. Strategies include creating integrated services and seamless care transitions from preconception through postpartum and well-baby; business, community, and government support, including paid parental leave, health insurance and spaces for new parents to meet each other; and mother-centered care, including quality visits on her schedule with complete and culturally appropriate information. These solutions catalyze a postpartum system of care that supports women, children, and families by infusing new ideas and capitalizing on existing opportunities and resources.

Measurement of maternal functioning during pregnancy and postpartum: findings from the cross-sectional WHO pilot study in Jamaica, Kenya, and Malawi

“…However, the WHODAS-12 may not be the optimal tool for use in this population and additional components to capture pregnancy-specific issues may be needed. Going forward, it will also be important to identify interventions that can be used to reduce functioning impairments in pregnant and postpartum women [ 11 , 39 – 41 ]. Potential strategies include providing targeted information, referrals to work, improvement and better adaptation of working conditions, health and social services as needed, and widening the scope of maternal health services.…”

A framework for healthcare interventions to address maternal morbidity

“…A Postpartum Think Tank meeting hosted by the US‐based Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP) identified that integrated services and seamless transitions from the prepregnancy through the postpartum period were a priority . Prepregnancy care should be the “third” routine component of maternal health care, and of equal importance to antenatal and postpartum care.…”

A Feminist Focus Group Analysis of Women's Experiences in Postpartum Yoga Classes with Babies Present

“…As in the classes observed by Markula, the women interviewed discussed their teachers as promoting ethical self-care to a high degree, which helped to build confidence and efficacy in the mothers which may potentially help to buffer from postpartum depression (Werner et al, 2015). Previous studies have focused on participation in mothering groups as a means of increasing social support and improving the well-being of mothers (Cornell et al, 2016;Strange et al, 2016), yet this study offered new insights into the ability of an embodied movement practice to help new mothers physically and emotionally recover from birth and motherhood.…”

“…The ability to meet other mothers and create parenting bonds has been connected to improved health outcomes for mothers (Cornell, McCoy, Stampfel, Bonzon, & Verbiest, 2016), and participation in mothering groups has been connected to increased perception of social support, social capital, and maternal health (Strange, Bremner, Fisher, Howat, & Wood, 2016). Armstrong and Edwards (2004) found that mothers with postpartum depression experienced a decrease in depressive symptomology following a group walking exercise intervention, but they did not find that social support improved for the mothers, which appears to be divergent from the experiences many of the mothers in this study described.…”

“…The classes became a form of social support, which previous studies have shown can help to enable postpartum women to exercise (Connolly et al, 2014;Saligheh et al, 2016) and lead to improved maternal health (Cornell et al, 2016;Strange et al, 2016).…”