Research shows that continuity of midwifery carer in pregnancy improves maternal and neonatal outcomes. This study examines whether midwifery group practice (MGP) care during pregnancy affects infant neurodevelopment at 6-months of age compared to women receiving standard hospital maternity care (SC) in the context of a natural disaster.
This prospective cohort study included 115 women who were affected by a sudden-onset flood during pregnancy. They received one of two models of maternity care: MGP or SC. The women's flood-related objective stress, subjective reactions, and cognitive appraisal of the disaster were assessed at recruitment into the study. At 6-months postpartum they completed the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ-3) on their infants' communication, fine and gross motor, problem solving, and personal-social skills.
Greater maternal objective and subjective stress predicted worse infant outcomes. Even when controlling for maternal stress from the flood, infants of mothers who were in the MGP model of maternity care performed better than infants of mothers in SC on two of the five ASQ-3 domains (fine motor and problem solving) at 6-months of age. Furthermore, infants in the SC model were more likely to be identified as at risk for delayed development on these domains than infants in the MGP model of care.
Continuity of midwifery care has positive effects on infant neurodevelopment when mothers experience disaster-related stress in pregnancy, with significantly better outcomes on two developmental domains at 6 months compared to infants whose mothers received standard hospital care.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 111. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 05 April 2023.
All research outputs
#476,254
of 34,297,219 outputs
Outputs from BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
#70
of 5,788 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#7,922
of 373,155 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
#2
of 113 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,297,219 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 5,788 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.3. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 113 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.
