NICU Family Support®
Your gift helps provide comfort and support to families with a baby in the NICU.
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Local Programs
- We work to improve the health of babies across the country.
- Programs are aimed at supporting moms-to-be and professionals.
- We offer comfort and support to families with a baby in the NICU.
Centering Pregnancy
New Jersey chapter
To address racial disparities in birth outcomes in New Jersey, the chapter funded the introduction of CenteringPregnancy (http://www.centeringhealthcare.org/) to local health care providers and as well as the establishment and on-going support of this model of group prenatal care at several local sites. The women who benefited from this program are pregnant African American women who get their prenatal care at Family Health Centers and clinics.
This program involved:
- Holding a showcase of program best practices which included CenteringPregnancy®.
- Establishing programs at Newark Community Health Center (NCHC), the University of Medicine and Dentistry of NJ and JFK Family Health Center.
The results included:
- One site reporting that only one of the 28 women completing the program had a preterm birth.
- Sixty-six percent of the participants liked receiving their prenatal care in the group.
- Eighty percent felt that they learned a lot about prenatal care in the group.
- Eighty percent enjoyed being with other women in the group care.
- Sixty-six percent felt well prepared for labor and delivery.
- Eighty-seven percent felt prepared for caring for a new baby.
- NJ Department of Health and Senior Services, after co-chairing the Social Equity in Birth Outcomes Initiative with the March of Dimes, decided to reprioritize its maternal child health grants to require evidence based programs that reduced racial disparities in birth outcomes.
- NCHC applied to the state for a Department of Health grant to improve access to prenatal care. NCHC received $300,000 grant to provide prenatal care at two prenatal clinics in the city of Newark that are at the sites of newly closed hospitals. Centering will be implemented at both sites.
- The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey’s OB/GYN clinic will provide access to CenteringPregnancy® for over 2,000 pregnant women at five clinics in Essex County. Essex County has the highest preterm birth rate (14.8 percent) in the state.
