Component A, Strategies 2,3,4,5 and 6. Advancing Best Practices to Improve Postpartum Care In and Beyond the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, (Care for NICU Families) - Component A, Strategies 2-6, Advancing Best Practices to Improve Postpartum Care In and Beyond the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (Care for NICU Families) focuses on the unique needs of postpartum parents and their medically fragile infants with special attention to minoritized and marginalized families. We believe that better care for NICU postpartum parents will lead to improvements in outcomes for this high-risk mom/baby pair by reducing maternal mortality and morbidity, increasing infant access to human milk, addressing maternal mental health and trauma, and providing NICU and community-based resources and social supports. We will improve care by identifying best practices, growing partnerships, listening to community, developing and sharing data-informed, co-designed products, and building capacity to meet the substantial mental, physical, and social needs of this postpartum population. We will build a national partnership guided by community and lived experience voices to develop a set of Best Practices for Postpartum NICU Care along with co-created tools and strategies to support model care. We will share what we learn across NICUs, professional and community networks nationwide, and provide technical assistance to groups who are ready to make change. This will lead to increased awareness and use of effective data-informed clinical care and public health resources and interventions, as well as increased capacity to implement clinical and public health approaches to improve outcomes for postpartum people. Our long-term goal is to eliminate maternal health disparities and improve postpartum health and wellbeing during NICU stays through transition to home.
