Although early and adequate prenatal care has long been advocated to improve neonatal outcomes, recent critiques of the literature have cast doubt on the effectiveness of prenatal care. These critiques are limited because they do not reflect the burgeoning information on some of the potential long-term affects of prenatal care on improving women's health and children's health and development. The Harvard Center for Children's Health proposes to conduct a national conference examining prenatal care interventions and their effectiveness in enhancing the immediate and long-term health and development of women and children. The conference is intended to stimulate new research on prenatal care and to improve the content and the implementation of existing prenatal care services. The conference will consider the effectiveness of various prenatal care interventions such as traditional medical interventions, as well as social support and behavioral aspects on prenatal care. The goals of the conference are threefold: l) To synthesize and summarize research that has demonstrated effectiveness for specific prenatal care interventions; 2) To identify gaps in the existing prenatal care literature and generate recommendations for future research; and 3) To communicate findings concerning effective prenatal intervention to policy makers, health care managers, and health care providers. The conference product will be a published report that will be distributed to health services researchers, maternal and child health professionals and policy makers, health care managers, and providers across the U.S. This report will serve to generate a more complete assessment of the value of prenatal care and will be a practical tool for improving informed decision making concerning maternal and child health services.
