Prenatal Care

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Prenatal Care

Prenatal care generally refers to individual patient care received from an obstetric care provider during pregnancy. Adequate prenatal care refers to both the amount and timing of prenatal care. Prenatal care is important for optimal birth outcomes.

Featured Resource

2023 Roadmap Profile: Group Prenatal Care

Participation in group prenatal care improves the likelihood that mothers receive adequate prenatal care and may impact mothers’ physical and emotional health and breastfeeding initiation.

Related Resources

2024 Prenatal-to-3 Legislative Highlights

With most legislatures adjourned for the year, we recap the 2024 action on state policies to support children and families. So far this year, lawmakers throughout the country debated—and many passed—legislation that aligns with four key components of the prenatal-to-3 system of care.

State Policies to Promote Equity in Healthy Perinatal Outcomes: A Summary of the Evidence

Barriers to health care, high-quality health insurance, and parental leave work together to leave families and children vulnerable during the perinatal period. These barriers can shape life-long outcomes, particularly for children from historically marginalized groups.

Building a Roadmap for Prenatal-to-3 State Policy (with Cynthia Osborne)

Cynthia Osborne discusses the work of the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center, which focuses on building the evidence base for effective state policies to improve outcomes for infants, toddlers, and their families. Read the full article

The 2023 Prenatal-to-3 State Policy Roadmap Report Illuminates Conditions in Ohio and Around the Country

Vanderbilt University’s Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center (PN-3) just issued its annual State Policy Roadmap, exploring ways that the states (and D.C.) can improve conditions so infants and toddlers can thrive. The Roadmap focuses on 12 solutions shown

After universal preschool’s launch, how will Colorado resolve problems facing parents and children?

When Colorado’s universal preschool program was set to launch, Carly Sargent-Knudson looked forward to full days in the classroom for 4-year-old Rune, paid for entirely by the state. She qualifies for a specialized education plan

The Value of Virginia’s Early Childhood Investments

It’s not every day you come across an investment that pays for itself within a year. A new report finds that early childhood is one of them. Analysis by the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center estimates that Virginia’s investment of