Mother’s Day is May 14th. As part of celebrating Mother’s Day, we wanted to take a moment to acknowledge an issue that is important and impacts many pregnant and parenting people in different ways — pre and postnatal care. Proper pre and postnatal care is vital for the health and wellness not only of babies and mothers but families as a whole. It has many facets, including proper OBGYN care, mental health services, and healthy relationship programming, to name just a few. As mothers, we can say that we are thankful every day for the strong support we received both and pre and postnatally. Several ACF programs aim to provide similar support to the populations they serve, to help parents have a healthier pregnancy and postnatal experience, which in turn can have a positive impact on their children and family as a whole.
One such program is MotherWise, which is funded by a healthy marriage and relationship education grant from ACF’s Office of Family Assistance to the University of Denver. MotherWise serves pregnant and parenting women with the goal of empowering women and their families to ultimately help them thrive during pregnancy, as well as after the baby is born. This program does this by educating women on what healthy relationships look like, teaching positive communication and relationship skills, as well as informing mothers how to connect with their newborn. These program components are offered through 6 weeks of workshops, as well as through one-on-one coaching sessions.
A recent impact evaluation of MotherWise, as part of the Strengthening Relationship Education and Marriages Services (STREAMS) evaluation, found positive impacts on multiple facets of this program at 30-months post-initial study enrollment. Specifically, MotherWise had persistent positive impacts on women’s relationship skills, including better romantic skills and conflict management skills, and on women’s disapproval of couple violence. MotherWise also increased relationship stability at the 30-month follow-up, such that women in the treatment group reported less relationship start-ups and break-ups as compared to the control group. However, the program did not find impacts on intimate partner violence, co-parenting quality, and maternal and child well-being at the 30-month follow-up.
Another program that works with pregnant and parenting people is the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program. MIECHV is administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in collaboration with ACF. An impact evaluation of MIECHV that measured outcomes when children were 15-months old found that MIECHV-funded home visiting may improve mothers’ general health as well as reduce mothers’ depressive symptoms and household aggression.
These impact findings suggest that programs such as MotherWise and MIECHV can help to make a difference for parents during the pre and postnatal periods, which can be such a vulnerable time in their lives. Let’s take a minute to celebrate and reflect on programs like these and the people they serve this Mother’s Day.