Maternal and Child Health
At its core, family medicine is about continuity and family-centered care, and the principles of family medicine shine in the peripartum and maternal and child health space. In the realm of maternal and child health, family medicine physicians care for mom and baby from preconception to long after delivery, as children and families grow. Family medicine physicians are the only practitioners who fully support mom and baby, providing a wide range of maternal and child health services, including preconception and prenatal care; management of medical complications during pregnancy; obstetrical services including operative delivery, perinatal and newborn care; breastfeeding support; postpartum contraception management; and assessment and treatment of postpartum depression.
Through our research, we aim to support our support our patients in gaining access to comprehensive pregnancy, perinatal and newborn care. Our research focuses on health services and interventions that support improved health outcomes for mothers and their children, particularly in vulnerable, high-risk and minoritized populations.
Research areas include:
- Supporting improved breastfeeding outcomes: This body of work focuses on health services and interventions that support improved breastfeeding outcomes in vulnerable populations. Not breastfeeding contributes to lifelong health disparities, including childhood and adult obesity, and cardiovascular disease and diabetes in women. By supporting improved breastfeeding outcomes, we can help address these disparities.
- Preconception care: This ongoing work helps educate young Black women on ways to improve their health before conception, with the goal of improving pregnancy outcomes. Preconception care is an important focus because Black women are twice as likely as White women to have babies born prematurely, at low birth weight, or with birth defects. This health disparity puts their babies at higher risk for health and developmental problems.
- Maternal Child Health fellowship: Our faculty help lead this fellowship track, which trains physicians in public health and general preventive medicine with a focus on maternal health outcomes in underserved communities.