Delaware County Medicine & Health Winter 2017 - 16
FEATURE
Birthing healthy babies is
everybody's business
Maternal and Child Health Home Visiting Programs
and Quality Care - Hand-in-Hand for Better Outcomes.
By Katie Kenyon, Community Development Coordinator, Women & Children's Services,
Crozer Keystone Community Foundation
I
n a recent study published in Pediatrics in December
2016, researchers - Rebecca Kilburn and Jill Cannon -
found that the benefits to first-time parents of home
visiting supports extend well beyond the feel-good
markers of bonding and attachment between moms and
babies. Parents with home visiting supports, regardless of
socio-economic status, took their babies to the emergency
room less. They were also less likely to see their pediatrician
for excessive visits in the first year which resulted in lower
healthcare costs.
In Delaware County, we have a wealth of home visiting
services available to families during pregnancy and in the first
years of life. These programs, such as Pathways PA Project
Peace Program, Early Head Start's Home-Based Services
and Maternity Care Coalition's MoMobile, provide valuable
wrap-around supports to vulnerable families including firsttime parents, low and very low-income families, pregnant and
parenting teens and families enrolled in Head Start. Healthy
Start and Nurse-Family Partnership are two established home
visiting programs under the umbrella of Women & Children's
Health Services with the new Crozer-Keystone Community
Foundation.
What exactly is it that Healthy Start and Nurse-Family
Partnership's home visiting programs do?
Home visiting staff provide health education, case
management, care coordination, advocacy and resource
linkages in the comfort of an enrolled family's home or a
convenient location (school, library, community center).
14 DELAWARE COUNTY MEDICINE & HEALTH
winter 2017
Home visiting staff provide health education,
management, care coordination, advocacy ancase
resource linkages in the comfort of an enro d
family's home or a convenient location. lled
Home visiting staff are either
registered Bachelor-level nurses or case managers who are
extensively trained community health workers (CHW) with a
deep understanding and knowledge of the communities they
are serving. Maternal and Child Health (MCH) home visitors
address a wide variety of topics with expectant or new moms
and their partners or families including; pregnancy health,
newborn care, safe sleep, breastfeeding, birth spacing and
birth control access, infant and toddler development, early
literacy and parenting skills. MCH home visiting programs
use persistent outreach and recruitment strategies to connect
moms with programs but also build strong partnerships and
relationships with community organizations and providers in
order to facilitate warm referrals and remove the barriers that
prevent women and families from receiving the services and
care they need.
We've learned a lot about wellbeing in recent years and
the public health field has helped shape our understanding
of how good health extends well beyond the bounds
of traditional medical care. Social and environmental
determinants such as economic stability, education access,
safe & secure housing, food availability and good nutrition,
but environment and community context play an equally
significant or even greater role. These determinants shape the
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Delaware County Medicine & Health Winter 2017
Delaware County Medicine & Health Winter 2017 - 1
Delaware County Medicine & Health Winter 2017 - 2
Delaware County Medicine & Health Winter 2017 - 3
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