Camden Mothers Deliver

Working towards a different model of prenatal and infant care in Camden, NJ

The Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers and Cooper University Hospital are building a program to improve upon prenatal and infant care delivery in Camden, called Camden Mothers Deliver (CMD).  The program combines group prenatal and well-child visits with a healthcare provider with education and support to address the reduced health and social functioning of socially disadvantaged parents and their children.  This program will offer prenatal and pediatric care with doctors and nurses from Cooper University Hospital.  Staff will work to improve patients’ resource utilization and education levels and support the development of sensitive and responsive care-giving.

The Coalition and Cooper University Hospital’s program is part of the Campbell Soup Company’s Hunger & Obesity Initiative, a ten year, $10 million dollar plan to decrease childhood obesity in the City of Camden by fifty percent.

P³ model of care

The Coalition will be one of three sites in New Jersey to use a group care curriculum from the University of Colorado’s Prevention Research Center.  The model, Pregnancy and Parenting  Partners (P³), is grounded in the content and methods of the Nurse-Family Partnership, an international leader in pregnancy and infant care for over 35 years.

The curriculum has been designed to address critical public health issues for socially disadvantaged parents and their children.  Our group sessions bring together up to 10 women and their support people for sharing and support from the first trimester until the child’s first birthday. All check-ups, support, and education will occur in a group setting.  This group care setting is an excellent opportunity for women and their support people to learn more about pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting.

Group facilitators guide women and companions toward enhanced health behaviors, competent care giving, planning of subsequent pregnancies, and other life-course choices, such as completion of education, finding work, and safe children.  The group care model allows the mothers to grow together and learn from each other throughout pregnancy and in the early years of child rearing.  It creates a support network that mothers will be able to utilize after the formal program ends.

The need for change in Camden

In 2007, the last year for which data are available, 83% of children in Camden were born to unwed mothers, and 22% of all children born were born to teenage mothers.  That same year, very preterm births (<31 weeks) were twice as likely to happen in Camden than in New Jersey and 12% of all births were preterm (<37).

Preterm birth is a serious health problem, one that can lead to increased risk for newborn health complications, such as breathing problems, and even death.  Most preterm babies require time to be spent in the newborn intensive care unit (NICU).  In Camden the 12% of preterm babies spent, on average, twenty more days in the hospital than their normal term counterparts.  These longer stays in the hospital and more intensive care add an additional burden to the system.  The 12% of preterm babies amassed $150,000 more in hospital receipts than their full-term counterparts.

Perhaps even more startling, in 2007 the infant mortality rate for Camden City was over double that of the infant mortality rate for the state of New Jersey.

We believe that by improving the quality of care that mothers-to-be receive both pre- and postpartum will help reduce preterm births, infant mortality, and reduce healthcare costs to the entire system.