“My Nurse Taught Me How to Have a Healthy Baby and Be a Good Mother:” Nurse Home Visiting with Pregnant Women 1888 to 2005

Abstract

Nurse home visiting with pregnant women and new mothers in the early decades of the twentieth century was designed to improve birth and newborn outcomes, hasten Americanization of immigrant mothers, and improve their parenting skills. Today the Nurse Family Partnership home visitation program improves newborn and child outcomes by positively influencing maternal role attainment and significantly decreasing maternal smoking and other substance abuse, child abuse and neglect, and children's emergency room visits. It also improves life possibilities for vulnerable young women by decreasing the interval and frequency of subsequent pregnancies and reduces dependence on welfare by increasing workforce participation. This article reviews the history of home visits by nurses to pregnant women and demonstrates the benefits achieved by these programs today.