Prenatal care adequacy has been consistent among births in Dodge and Jefferson county since from 2016-2023, between 85%-86% during that time span, with the exception of the pandemic impacted years of 2020-2021. 

Contributing factors:

• Promotion of Welcome Baby program from community-wide partnerships spreading awareness of prenatal and postnatal resources impacting care. 
• Increased staffing of OGBYNs at local regional medical center.

Limiting factors:

• Historically marginalized populations have lower prevalence of prenatal care adequacy and those populations have increased in births in recent years. 

Children and communities thrive when all families have support and the necessary resources to be confident in providing a safe, stable and supportive environment, prenatal to postpartum and throughout lifespan. The most rapid and sensitive period of development begins before and immediately following birth, this period is defined as perinatal. The perinatal period sets the foundation for long-term health and wellbeing.

Learn more: Wisconsin Perinatal Health Inequities

• Academic Partners
• Head Start
• Human Services
• Insurance Agencies
• Public Health
• Managed Care (private, T19)
• Medical Providers (Health Care): Physicians, RN’s, Specialists, Hospitals
• Nonprofits
• Parents, Caregivers, Families
• State Policymakers
• Unite Us (referral platform)
• Women, Infants, and Children Nutrition Program (WIC)

BUILD KNOWLEDGE, providing family-centered perinatal education focused on supporting all family members as they move from one stage of development to the next, programs and tools

BUILD CONNECTIONS

• Support families in building protective factors, screening for needs: Universal Social Determinants Of Health (SDOH) screening (i.e. PRAPARE)
• Strengthen perinatal systems in communities, with stronger, coordinated referral system to connect pregnant people to resources: Pathways Hub, Community Resource Referral Platforms (i.e.Unite Us), Pre -Natal Care Coordination (PNCC), Family Navigators

TRANSFORM SYSTEMS

• Eliminate barriers to quality perinatal care with best practices and evidence-based models: group prenatal care, centering pregnancy model, home visiting programs
• Universal postpartum depression screening

ADVANCE POLICY

• Prenatal to 3 Policy Roadmap advocates for paid family leave, income eligibility for insurance, SNAP, child tax credit, Early Head Start and more
• Increase access to perinatal mental health supports

Phase One: Build systems of support through universal Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) screening and referral network 

• Objective 1: All Welcome Baby Coalition Members have operationalized SDOH screener and are using it for all pregnant people 
• Objective 2: Evaluate and test the feasibility of a community resource referral platform (i.e Unite Us) to strengthen the referral network 

Phase Two: Build community and connect families to resources using a universal home visiting program

• Objective: Research and implement universal home visitation 

Phase Three: Research group prenatal care for rural areas (Centering Pregnancy) 

• Objective: Research and identify a model that best fits the needs of the community 

Prenatal care adequacy based on the Kotelchuck index for prenatal care. 

The Kotelchuck Index, also called the Adequacy of Prenatal Care Utilization (APNCU), uses two crucial elements obtained from birth certificate data-when prenatal care began (initiation) and the number of prenatal visits from when prenatal care began until delivery (received services).