The long-term goal of this development project is to improve the health and wellness of postpartum women, babies, and families through the development of a new model of healthcare for the first year of life that integrates pediatric care, well-woman care, and parenting education for families. We hope the development of this model will 1) enhance mothers' health behaviors for self and baby; 2) increase psychosocial functioning; 3) improve parent-child relationships; 4) increase father-child involvement; 5) improve co-parent relationships; and 6) improve parenting behaviors. The health of mother and baby are linked pre- and post- partum. Using the Ecological Model, this development project aims to: 1) Design a model of care to replace separate """"""""well-woman"""""""" and """"""""well-baby"""""""" care with an integrated form of dyad care that will address the needs of both mother and baby in a group setting, and incorporate fathers to promote improved parenting and family wellness; 2) Develop a standardized curriculum for this model (i.e., CenteringParenting) that will serve diverse families; 3) Pilot test this model of care in hospital and community health care center settings. CenteringParenting group dyad care will be based upon the CenteringPregnancy Plus (CP+) model of care, which has been developed and evaluated for prenatal women in a large NIMH RCT (R01MH/HD61175). CenteringParenting would build on the strengths of CP+ to provide care to groups of women and babies from 2 weeks to 1 year postpartum, and engage fathers. We will convene a Curriculum Development Working Group comprised of national experts in the fields of women's health, pediatrics, psychology, education, fatherhood and healthcare innovation to develop and standardize a curriculum. A process evaluation will identify factors that influence successful model development and implementation. We will pilot test this model at 2 sites, with participants randomly assigned by month of delivery to CenteringParenting (n=57 women/25 men) or standard individual pediatric and postpartum care (Controls, n=57 women/25 men). We hypothesize that those receiving CenteringParenting care will have improved: 1) psychosocial outcomes; 2) parenting skills; 3) health behaviors; 4) healthcare utilization; and 5) father involvement. This development grant provides the opportunity to develop a superior, sustainable, cost-neutral group model of care that could improve the health of postpartum women and babies, and the wellness of families. ? ? ?
