In plain words
Home visiting is care given in the home rather than at a clinic. After birth, a nurse, , or trained community worker may visit to check the baby's weight and feeding, look at healing, and ask how you are doing. Some visits are part of a hospital discharge plan. Others come from public health programs, which often focus on families with higher needs, such as first-time mothers or families with low income. Federal law sets a minimum insured hospital stay after birth, and many mothers leave earlier, so home visits are one way follow-up gets arranged. Home visiting is different from a or a night nanny, who also may come to the home but do other work. Visits are often short. Hospitals and local health departments can tell you what is offered in your area.
The deeper version
Home visiting ranges from universal nurse visits in the first weeks, as in some national systems, to targeted models. The best-known targeted model, the , enrolls first-time, low-income mothers and visits from pregnancy through early childhood, based on Olds and colleagues' randomized trials that began in the late 1970s. Olds and colleagues (JAMA, 1998) reported effects on child antisocial behavior at fifteen years. Much of the wider literature is observational or quasi-experimental, and effects on maltreatment and maternal outcomes vary by program and population. The AAP recommends an early follow-up visit after hospital discharge, which ties home visiting to length-of-stay policy. Debate continues over universal versus targeted models and their cost.
Where it comes up
- Going home: the car ride and the first eveningBirth and the First Days
- Home visiting programs and public health nursesCalifornia: Leave, Money, and Paperwork
- Asking for help, and letting it inSupport, Home, and Village
- Finding your villageSupport, Home, and Village
What mothers here say about home visiting
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Sources
- American Academy of Pediatrics — Hospital Stay for Healthy Term Newborns, clinical report, 2015
- Olds DL et al. — Long-term effects of nurse home visitation on children's criminal and antisocial behavior: 15-year follow-up of a randomized controlled trial. JAMA, 1998