Healthy Births and Strong Beginnings

During pregnancy, a woman’s health status and behavior can affect her growing fetus and have long-term physical and cognitive effects on her child post-delivery. Access to high-quality, consistent prenatal care, including medical examinations and health education, can help ensure a safe, healthy pregnancy and childbirth experience for mothers and support positive developmental outcomes for their children.

After birth, access to high-quality, consistent medical care and nurturing care is critical for infants’ wellbeing. Babies who are physically and emotionally healthy are more likely to become healthy, stable, successful adults. The healthcare system touches nearly all babies, and many, including our Foundation, recognize it as an important entry point and pathway to improved health and early childhood outcomes for children.

In their first three years of life, children attend as many as 13 well-child visits, making pediatric care an important and near universal touchpoint for parents and families. For new parents across socio-economic status and racial and ethnic groups, pediatric clinics have been cited as one of the most trusted resources, second only to immediate family.

Parents need support in the postnatal period as well. When parents and caregivers are at their best, they are better able to provide the types of safe, stable, and nurturing relationships needed for healthy cognitive, social, and emotional development. Research underscores the importance of supporting parental wellbeing, showing that a parent’s health is one of the strongest predictors of a child’s health outcomes. Indeed, parental health is more strongly associated with a child’s health than many other socio-economic or demographic factors, including family income, family structure, parents’ level of education, and the child’s sex, age, or race.